Editorial: Just One Takes Courage Test

Editorial: Just one takes courage test

Only one political candidate in the mid-valley, Dan Thackaberry, was willing to take part in a voter service provided by Project Vote Smart, the organization reports.

This is too bad for the voters and for the other candidates, because the information put out by Project Vote Smart can be helpful in giving people with access to a computer a wide-ranging picture of a candidate’s opinions.

In this project, which was founded in Corvallis and moved to Montana several years ago, candidates are invited to answer a questionnaire, and the answers are made available online.

Since it began, however, fewer and fewer candidates are willing to take part. The reason seems to be a fear that answers to the questions will give their election opponents ammunition to lambaste them with during their respective campaigns.

Yes, that could happen, but how else are voters supposed to make a decision that is based on more than party identification or the sound of somebody’s name?

Newspaper interviews are one traditional way to sound out candidates, and the papers do what they can. But in the primary there are so many races and so many candidates — and voting by mail has shortened the period of time available before elections to such an extent (by three weeks) — that it’s impossible to give comprehensive summaries of candidates’ stands on more than a few issues by this traditional way.

Vote Smart reports that only 9 percent of legislative candidates in the Oregon primary completed its questionnaire, which it calls its “political courage test.” And the only one running in a mid-valley district who did so was Thackaberry.

Thackaberry, a Lebanon farmer and former city council member, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination for state representative in District 17.

Because of his courage to meet this particular test, voters can tell that he’s against fee increases to balance the state budget, he’s for limiting campaign contributions, and he supports the death penalty, but for nonviolent offenders he would like to see punishment other than imprisonment.

The form has Thackaberry’s answers to a lot of other questions as well. Check them out at www.votesmart.org and follow the links to the Oregon results.

Thackaberry did the right thing by being so forthcoming and filling out the form. Would that the others on the ballot had done the same thing.

(hh)