Richard Kimball’s Blog

Mudslinging, candidates, manipulation and the self-anointed know-it-all partisans on television can make prudent voting difficult.

Here are three things I look for when deciding who to vote for:

1. What did the candidate do before entering politics? Did they give back to their community or country?
2. Is there a factual voting record or other clear evidence that they have represented you on issues you’re concerned about.
3. Most importantly, has the candidate ever jeopardized their political future by standing up in opposition to their party or conventional wisdom? Any candidate willing to expend his future to stand up for what is right as they see the right deserves your attention, whether you agreed with them or not.

It will take that political courage to move our nation forward. It is not the imagery created around them or even the words they utter that is of greatest value. It is what they have actually done with their lives that will most accurately forecast what they will do for you or to you if elected.

You will find all of these answers in the Project’s database.

We just got in the 2008 Voter’s Self-Defense Manuals. They are loaded with the key votes, issue positions, campaign finances and competing special interest evaluations of every member of Congress. This wonderful 100 page booklet is sent automatically to all of our supporting members.

Remember you do not need to be a member, or even contribute to use our services but if you can afford to, we could sure use your help.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR FREE MANUAL

Just fill out the form, even if you cannot afford to help us, and we will send your manual today.

Our API, designed exclusively to enrich major media web sites, is now available to other approved sites.

Over 100 major media and organizational web sites are now using Project Vote Smart’s API to enhance their own users’ experience on their own sites.

The API will allow people outside of our organization to integrate our data into their applications. The API will respond to requests for data from your users for all or any of the over 40,000 candidates we cover.

You can gain access by simply obtaining a valid key and you can apply for this key at our website. The sign-up process will require a valid email address and the host or machine which will use the key.

Just click here to register.

After four months of legal research, our legal team reported to me that we have some great cases against special interests and candidates of both political parties. Then they asked, “Do you have a couple years and an extra million to defend yourselves in the courts?”

In one case, a wealthy interest called the Club for Growth produced an attack ad by fabricating facts about a Congressional candidate and put those facts in a picture of our web site to give the attack credibility. Without the funds to defend and furious, I decided to complain to Steven Moore, a columnist at the Wall Street Journal. Twenty minutes into the conversation and my complaint Moore informs me that he was one of the founders of Club for Growth. Stunned, the conversation soon ended with him saying he would look into it. Nothing happened.

Work here sensitizes us to the quiet unmentioned war over the minds of our fellow citizens. Casting political power out to the mob has but one delicate and vulnerable means of success: the mob’s ability to acquire accurate, trusted information by which they have some hope of being good for us.

In an age where information and emotions can be so easily tortured — and so many selfish interests are willing to do so — the citizens’ right to the facts is the paramount issue of our time.

JOHN MCCAIN IS REMOVED FROM OUR BOARD is raising a few feathers. To explain:

Yes, John McCain was voted off Project Vote Smart’s board for failing to provide information in our National Political Courage Test. Yes, John McCain did sign a letter going out to all other Presidential and Congressional candidates in an effort to compel them to take and pass the test.

However, it is important to note the following:

1. Sen. McCain has taken and passed this test in all of his prior campaign elections.
2. Barack Obama took and passed the test when he ran for the Illinois State Legislature but has failed it this year.
3. Hillary Clinton has never passed the test.
4. The Project board also voted to remove Senator Bill Bradley from our board when he failed to pass the test as a candidate for President in 2000.

On a more personal note, some recall that I was the dead political body that Congressman John McCain stepped into the Senate over in 1986 when Barry Goldwater resigned. I want to emphasize that John’s removal from our board is required by our rules and the precedents we have set. In spite of our sometimes bitter contest for Senator Goldwater’s Senate seat 22 years ago, I have liked and admired much of what John has done during his Senate career.

This 10-year study tests each candidate’s willingness to provide citizens with information on the issues that citizens are most concerned with and that the candidate is likely to face if elected. Each candidate is repetitively asked by major media, prominent political leaders and Vote Smart staff to provide this crucial information over a six-week period.

This graph shows the declining willingness of all candidates for Congress to provide this information. The percentage of Democrats and Republicans providing information never varies more than a few percentage points while third party candidates tend to be more willing to do so. The excuse most often exposed by the test is candidate fear of opposition research.

You can view the results for all Presidential, Congressional and state legislative candidates in our database under “Issue positions” or “Political Courage Test.” Many 2008 candidate tests are not yet completed.

Here is a small sampling of the excuses given as collected by our 200 -plus media test participants and Project staff:

* “Our campaign only filled out issue questionnaires if they came with a campaign contribution” - North Carolina Democrat

* “The Republicans suggested that we not respond” - Iowa Republican

* “The leadership told him not to answer the issue questions” - Ohio Republican

* “It is not our job to educate. It is our job to win!” - Democratic National Committeeman

* “My consultant asked me why I would want to provide the Project with issue positions that my opponent would see.” - WA Democrat

* “Americans aren’t asking for more information from candidates, they’re asking for less. They don’t want to be troubled.” - WA Republican Chairman

* “Our consulting firm is telling our candidates not to respond.” - California Republican

* “The party is advising candidates not to answer the issue questions.” - Ohio Democrat

* “The people won’t use issue information unless it comes with a free ginzu knife.” - Presidential Campaign

There is no rarer moment of political clarity than when a citizen ponders what it means to cast power to the mob in the hopes that the mob will be good to them.

To believe that such a thing could work in today’s world of powerful self-governing factions is a leap into the darkness that only the most shrewd and selfless can make.

It is the very jump that Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Washington took not so long ago.

Project Vote Smart is made possible by the few who carry on that legacy and are willing to put aside their personal politics for that most essential component in the struggle: the people’s right to the facts about those who govern or those who wish to replace them.

Please help when you can. But remember even when you cannot, use us to defend yourself and every other American upon whom we are so dependent for their good judgment.

Richard Kimball
Project President

The Project conducted a ten-year study of every candidate for state legislature, governor, congress and the presidency to track their decreasing willingness to provide citizens with specific positions on the voter’s concerns. Or in other words: Issues that their pollster did not stamp SAFE!

Using key leaders of both parties from the Project’s Board and over 100 major daily newspapers we bombarded each candidate with requests for information on issues. The percentage of candidates willing to provide information dropped from a high of 72% in 1996 to a low of 48% in 2006.

You can watch your favorite candidates performance on this years test on this web site. Just look at the Political Courage Test. Three things became apparent over the course of the test:

1. The percentage of democrats and republicans agreeing to answer questions never varied more than a few percentage points.
2. The more money a candidate raised, the more ability they had to control their campaign message the less likely they were to provide citizens with issue position specifics.
3. The basic reason a candidate would refuse to provide such information was to avoid opposition research.

Here is tiny sample of the reasons they will not provide this basic information every citizen has a right to:

• “Our campaign only filled out issue questionnaires if they came with a campaign donation.” - NC Democrat
• “My consultant asked me why I would want to provide the Project with issues positions that my opponent would see.” - WA Democrat
• “Americans aren’t asking for more information from candidates, they’re asking for less. They don’t want to be troubled.” WA Republican Chairman
• “It is not our job to educate. It is our job to win!” - AZ Democratic National Committee

RK

• Debt ridden society
• Global warming
• Brain drain
• Extinction of species
• Oil dependence
• Health care and social security insolvent
• God’s disciples everywhere

This is our watch!

Your candidates are placating everyone with a spoonful of sugar and there is no one in the fields to cultivate.

American revolutions: “Bondage may bring them the courage of revolution and if the revolution is successful that will bring them liberty.  With liberty will bring them great abundance but that will bring greed and selfishness and that will lead to apathy and complacency.  Once that happens they will find themselves dependent again and will eventually lead right back to bondage.  In the end they will simply form ‘factions’ (the founders terms for political parties and special interests) and they will simply fight over the awards they can vote for themselves out of the public treasury.”

How many of today’s candidates will deceive to preserve one vote when telling the truth might win them two.  People are brighter than this!