Over the past two months or so, editors and reporters at the Connection sat down face to face with each candidate running for a seat in the House of Delegates. After first reading the answers the candidate provided to our questionnaire (published in our newspapers last week and available at www.connectionnewspapers.com), we spent close to an hour with each candidate in a contested race. First we asked each candidate to tell us briefly why he
or she was running and why they were the best choice. Then we asked questions.
We interviewed incumbents, challengers, Republicans, Democrats and independent candidates, including Libertarians and Independent Greens. We learned something from every interview.
Reporters and editors attended candidate forums and debates, and we published stories about positions, issues, indiscretions and donations.
The purpose of our coverage, hundreds of pages of it, is to encourage voters to get involved, to read about candidates, to make choices, to turn out and vote.
The nonpartisan League of Women Voters Election Guide also appears in the Connection Newspapers this week.
Today we share endorsements for contested races in the House of Delegates.
While certainly any endorsement is first designed to persuade, we have not made any attempt to pick “winners.” We hope the information in our endorsements will be one more piece of information to motivate potential
voters to go to the polls Tuesday, Nov. 8 to vote.
If you like the criteria we offer, then you’ll probably agree with our endorsements. If you don’t agree, you might well choose to vote for the candidates we didn’t endorse. But above all, we urge you to vote.
We deliberately print endorsements today allowing for one more publication date between now and election. We want to give a chance for readers and candidates to have the last word. We encourage all viewpoints. Letters and
comments can be e-mailed, mailed or faxed.
<1b>—Mary Kimm, mkimm@connectionnewspapers.com