Looking at the candidates side-by-side

Elections can be confusing.
Candidates can overwhelm us with so much of their hand-picked information, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish up from down and who supports what. It’s easy to get lost amid the information--especially since not all of it’s useful.
It’s even harder still to look at candidates in a side-by-side comparison.
We enjoy election time--not just because of the energy it creates and the spike in the number of folks who become engaged in the public debate. We enjoy election time because it reinforces the role a community newspaper plays in our local democratic process.
If all politics are local, we relish the opportunity to be the only ones intensively covering our local races.
We can turn on the television or log onto the Internet and find out all kinds of information about state and national candidates for office. In fact, it’s hard to escape their ubiquity. But you won’t find out that much about our county races unless we post it online (which we have).
Included in this week’s issue of the Orange County Review is an overview of the Nov. 8 election. Weeks ago, we sent out questionnaires to all the county board and constitutional officer candidates. We asked them to state their positions on key issues within the county, and except for a word limit, offered them the opportunity to proffer proposed solutions to those issues they identified as the most critical.
Questions were tailored to specific offices, but each candidate for the same office received the same set of questions. Word limits were set fairly among candidates for each office.
This section presents their answers in a side-by-side comparison to help inform voters about ideas and differences among the candidates.
While the election is still nearly two weeks away, we wanted the section out far enough in advance that voters would have sufficient time to seek more information from candidates, if necessary, and have adequate time to consider all pertinent information before making informed choices Nov. 8.
It’s not overstating to suggest this election is critical--particularly at the board of supervisors level. Though we’re still mired in our economic downturn, it’s not unreasonable to believe that those elected this fall will be shaping the county’s direction by the time things start to get better. Who will we want to lead us? Not just now, but then?

Because of some space constraints in the section, not every question asked was used in the print version. However, those questions and answers struck from the section are included online. Additionally, some candidates chose to use the maximum word limit, while others offered more concise answers. Only in limited cases were a candidate’s answers in the print section truncated for space purposes. Their complete answers can be viewed at www.orangenews.com under the Election 2011 panel.
We appreciate the candidates’ participation in our questionnaire and wish them all the best of luck Nov. 8.