Two Hundred Questions for Congressional Candidates

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When did it become acceptable for candidates for public office to refuse to answer questions? Or, as is more common, to answer without responding?

When did we become so complacent that the people who want to represent us feel free to stone-wall and obfuscate their views on vital matters of public policy, their values and philosophy?

When did having well-thought-out views on difficult issues stop being the primary qualification for holding public office, replaced, by all the evidence, by the ability to talk without communicating anything?

When did public officials seize the right to make vital decisions about public affairs in private without explaining themselves to anyone?

It seems to be the rule rather than the exceptions that major candidates blow off questionnaires from public interest groups like Project Vote-Smart. That’s just a shame. I’ve frankly had enough of that non-sense. I’m just one guy with a blog, but I’m fortunate that a fairly large number of people who together can exert a lot more influence than me actually take the time to read what I have to say. What I’m saying now is that I’ve had enough.

I want some answers. Two hundred of them to be exact.

With your help, I seek to craft 20 pointed, well-framed questions on each of 10
topics. These questions will be asked of the candidates in CD 8,
incrementally, 20 at a time, until the project dies a well-deserved
death because nobody can be arsed to participate and make this
experiment work, or until all 200 questions have been fully and
responsively answered by the candidates over the course of the
campaign.

I don’t think that I am the only one who can frame a good question. Nor are good questions limited to a particular political viewpoint; just the opposite, in fact. So
I am asking for everyone’s help in creating the questions, too. That includes my bloggity pals on the red end of the spectrum.

Whether we’ll get any answers is pretty much up to you. If you want answers as much as I do, and you make just the slightest effort to ensure that adequate answers are given, then I’m confident that answers are what we’ll get. I am more than willing to share those answers with anyone and everyone in the media willing to listen. I don’t want a scoop, or exclusivity, or credit; I just want the answers.

I have created a wiki for collaborative work on this project.
Anyone can read and comment on the pages. If you want to actually edit
the wiki, you need to be added to the group by me. To be added, send me an email
expressing your interest and listing any group or groups you are
associated with that may be interested in co-sponsoring the questions.

Read more about the 200Q project and the 10 topics after the click…

Good journalism, whether in traditional media or on the internet,
should add to the store of information available to the public with
which to make good decisions. Too often, we bloggers simply chew over
what is already out there. It’s an important service, but when there is
too little to chew on, we tend to start chewing up the scenery — to
mix my metaphors thoroughly. This is my small contribution, my attempt
to add to the information that the public can use to make good
democratic decisions; I hope some of you will take ownership and make
it your contribution, too.

If people from other districts want to pose these questions to their
own candidates, all the better. Have at it. My district is my job; your
district is yours. If you want to use the questions that my
collaborators and I create, change or modify them, or start over with
your own, more power to you.

I’ve tried posing questionnaires to the candidates in the past with
some marginal success. I find that the hungriest, underdog candidates
are more than willing to participate. They see any opportunity to get
their message out as a chance to get a leg up with the electorate. The
front-runners, or those assured of nomination, however, only see an
opportunity to stumble or for opponents to attack them, and they simply
refuse to respond, fairly confident that their decision won’t cost them
anything — except, perhaps, one annoyed blogger.

There’s only one way out of this dynamic that I can see: the public
and the media have to be demanding direct answers to a single set of
questions from all the candidates in a race regardless of whether they
are a dark-horse or an incumbent. They have to be willing to shame
those candidates for refusing to make their views known.

Candidates for public office in a democracy must not act like they
are Supreme Court nominees facing confirmation hearings when they face
their electorate. Refusals to be responsive, failure to make
commitments, and reluctance to take clear positions are simply not
acceptable; such behavior is deeply undemocratic in the truest sense.
So don’t accept such behavior. You have a right to know how those who
aspire to represent you stand; don’t accept anything less.

The
race between Gabby Giffords and Tim Bee will probably be worse than
most in terms of the candidates’ reluctance to respond to questions
clearly and substantively. The incentives are all on the side of
maintaining positions as vague and ill-defined as possible.

The party’s candidates are already chosen, so Gabby will be playing
defense, intent mainly on not making any mistakes that could lose her
any votes, and Tim will be focused on creating clouds of vaguely
moderate perfume to attract undecideds, and firing broadsides and
potshots trying to knock voters off Gabby bandwagon. None of this
activity is conducive to generating much in the way of actual
information for the voters.

So, this is where I lay down my marker. Join me in this work. To the
extent that you do, we may succeed in squeezing some actual information
out of Gabby and Tim.

As I said, I propose 10 broad topic areas with 20 pointed questions
on each topic. I have already selected 9 topics. I am not wedded to any
of these topics, and would like suggestions for the 10th topic, as well
as suggestions for alternates for any of the 9 that I am suggesting.

Feel free to repost or remix any portion of this article for your
own blogs, mailing lists, discussion groups, etc. I hope to start a
meaningful conversation about what 200 answers that voters really need
from candidates for office to make an informed choice. The wider a net
that conversation occurs within, the wiser the result is likely to be.
I don’t want ownership or direction of this process, I merely seek to
start it, and provide a place for it to grow. The rest depends on you
becoming collaborators in this process. Whether we succeed is up to
you, not me.

Here are nine topics I recommend, in the order in which the
questions will be formulated and posed. Feel free to suggest
alternative order of topics as well.

Constitution: issues of civil rights, constitutional limits
on governmental power, checks and balances, and interpretation of the
constitution.

Security: issues of national security strategy, combating
terrorism, our armed forces, collective security and alliances, and
strategy regarding current engagements of our armed forces around the
world, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Middle East in
general.

Economy: how the candidate will approach issues of taxation,
income distribution, labor conditions, poverty, terms of trade,
market regulations, macro-economics and finance.

Health Care: approaches to improving the efficiency,
lowering cost, improving patient outcomes, and broadening access to our
health care system. Essentially a sub-set of Economy, but of
importance, interest, and complexity sufficient to warrant it’s own
topic.

Immigration: how the candidate will approach the
side-effects, challenges, and opportunities created by the growing
number of undocumented immigrants coming to the United States to live
and work.

International: how the candidate will address the
opportunities and challenges of international relations, especially
those threats and challenges faced by all nations irrespective of
national boundaries, such environmental pollution, climate change,
global pandemics, terrorism, trade liberalization, growing economic
interdependence, and global economic development and poverty.

Energy: strategies and priorities regarding the changes and
challenges we face in transitioning our economy from near-total
reliance on fossil fuels to greater use of renewable and sustainable
sources of energy. This is essentially a sub-category of Economy but
one of such importance and complexity that it also deserves its own
topic.

Science/Technology: how will the candidate approach the
myriad issues and dilemmas of technology policy, scientific research,
and investment that will keep America at the forefront of innovation,
forming the basis of a prosperous U.S. economy into the future.

Local/Regional Issues: where does the candidate stand on
issues that are of special interest and great impact to the local
communities of CD 8, such as land use, military basing, and water,
among others.