To the editor:

Are any of your candidates a conservative liberal or liberal conservative?  If you’re a party lever puller then what I’m going to discuss may not mean much to you and I offer you my condolences.
In this day of political doublespeak, especially during the election season, you really have to dig deep to understand who you’re really voting for. Whether it’s on the federal, state or local election level you have to ask the right questions to understand where a candidate stands on issues important to you and whether you can believe their answers. Candidate truthfulness and openness play a huge part in determining who to vote for.
I was taken back recently by an interview with a Democratic candidate for congress who refused to answer a question on who she voted for in the last presidential election.  As a staunch Democrat you would think she would support the person she voted for, unless it wasn’t President Obama. Of course if that was the case then I guess she wouldn’t be a party person.  You could rationalize that she felt that question was personal and she didn’t have to answer or she wanted to distance herself from the president and his personal agenda. In any event, her lack to respond should tell anyone that she was a person whose answers to other questions or her stated position on various issues couldn’t be trusted. Who would vote for a candidate like that? Not me, how about you?
Since we are facing a very important local election I think we should test all the candidates on the truthfulness of their answers to specific questions. We can read if they have the qualification for elected office but we really don’t need to hear too much in the way of campaign rhetoric. I believe that asking specific questions to each candidate vying for the same office would tell you more about them than a press release.  I would suggest starting with 2 basic questions: (1) who did you vote for in the last 3 presidential elections and (2) do you pull the party lever? After that you can tailor your questions to meet your special needs.

Karl Kachadoorian, 

Tryon, N.C.