OK In-Depth; Project Vote-Smart Part 2

The nonpartisan political research organization Project Votesmart recently distributed a survey to all Oklahoma candidates running for federal and statewide offices. The National Political Awareness Test asks candidates to state their positions on a variety of issues as a tool to help voters make up their minds on election day. Yesterday, on KGOU, the group's national board chair, Adelaide Elm, told us about the survey. The results from Oklahoma have just been released, and Miss Elm joins us again now to review them with us. So what kind of response did you get? The results of the National Political Awareness Test of Oklahoma's state legislative and U.S. House and Senate candidates is pretty disappointing. The Oklahoma candidates this year, at the congressional level, only 38 percent of them were willing to answer questions on issues such as healthcare and social security, budget and tax issues education in the environment, and only 18 percent of legislative candidates were willing to discuss their intentions on the issues that fell in both levels from the 2002 response

rate. So they're both well below the national averages in the last election. I'm actually looking at the results right now of your test, and I guess we should let listeners know that none of the U.S. Senate candidates, Democrat Brad Carson, Republican Tom Coburn, or independent Sheila Bill U, have agreed to reply to the test. That's right. We're hearing from candidates that they're being told not to answer questions on the issues that they don't control. They're saying that, first of all, it will limit your ability to control your campaign message if you start talking about an issue that's not strong for you, but it may be strong for your opponent. It's not going to do you any good, so just don't do it. And even more than that, we're hearing from candidates that they're being told that if they provide answers to questions on the issues that are going to be made public, put in a public place like a website, like Project Postomat does, then their opponent will find out where they stand on the issues, and we'll use it against them in opposition research

or even worse in attack ads, and twist their responses. Clearly, if you're not willing to let your opponent know where you stand on these issues, you can't possibly inform the voters. So that kind of campaign tactics strip citizens from the essential information they need in order to figure out which candidate they want to vote for. What can Oklahoma voters do about this? Well, first of all, I want to stress that we have collected a lot of information about these candidates independently of their cooperation. So particularly at the congressional incumbent level, the presidential candidates, we've collected their speeches and their public statements. They're searchable by keyword or phrase. So the Project Votesmart web address is vote-smart.org, and the hotline, which is toll-free, staffed by college interns and volunteers, is 888 vote-smart, 888-868-3762. Adelaide Elm is the national board chair of Project Votesmart. Based on her experience surveying candidates in other states, Elm says she suspects Oklahoma

party leaders and political consultants have advised candidates not to respond to the test. Both state Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones and Democratic Party Chairman Jay Parmley deny that claim. Also, a spokesperson for the Carson campaign tells KGOU that he has nothing against Project Votesmart, but that he prefers that voters see Brad Carson's official voting record on his own website, or on the Library of Congress's legislative site. The Tom Coburn campaign did not return KGOU's calls by airtime. Links to all of these websites are posted on our own site, KGOU.org. This is KGOU News Director Scott Gurion.