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We all must take part In this week’s edition we carry many of the personal profiles of the men and women who are running for office at the Town and County levels. They follow the first several articles which ran last week and will conclude with next week’s edition. The final week before November’s election, we will carry the public’s comments about the issues and ideas they think are important. These items will be the result of our reporters getting out into the streets, in front of the supermarkets and elsewhere around the community to hear what you have to say. We began discussions about our election coverage in July. At that time we decided that it was important to address what we saw as a growing distrust of public officials and a general apathy about voting, the linch pin of the democratic process. As a community newspaper, these were troubling trends and we discussed how we could do something in our coverage to allow the public to know what we knew as reporters and first-hand government watchers, that is that most of those men and women who run and serve in public office are hard working, concerned and honest people who want to make a difference. Certainly there are tremendous differences in their politics and their approaches and certainly there are a few—a very few—who violate the public trust, but the truth is that the public’s deep, abiding disenchantment with our democratic process was misplaced and mistaken. As a result, we decided to do something different with our coverage this year and to hold in-depth interviews with each of the candidates. With few exceptions, these were personal interviews in their offices or homes, in diners and restaurants, and we took the time to try and get to know them so we could tell you who they were and what they were like as people, not politicians. Instead of talking about politics and policies; instead of asking them what they thought about senior citizen housing, health care, taxes, and all the other governmental issues, we asked where they grew up and how that had an impact on their lives. We asked them who their personal and political heroes were and why. We pressed to get them to talk about their childhood and their years in school and prodded them to think about some of the most difficult and sad moments of their lives and to relive those moments so we could capture them in words. These were not easy interviews for the candidates; we made them work and work hard so that we could bring you, their constituents, a picture of who they were. But they were gracious and honest subjects and we thank each of them for their time and for being so forthcoming with their stories. We would also like our readers to know that these editorial and decisions, and most of the interviews for that matter, were done before September 11, when the world changed. But they are in keeping, we think, with what has become so obvious since then, and that is that the character and commitment, dedication and metal of those we choose to represent us in government are often as important as their political views. As citizens in a free and democratic country our obligation is to ensure these characteristics in our leaders by making decisions carefully, going to the polls and taking part in the process.
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