I'm a firm believer in full disclosure, communicating as much information to the voter as possible, and basically treating the voter with respect. (Of course, you also don't want to do the opponent's job for them.)
I see the Demos as (somewhat) more supportive of this kind of thinking, so it should be no great surprise that I'm playing a very active role in the campaign of a local Demo challenger for a seat in the Iowa legislature.
However, the above two activities conflict when it comes to Project Vote Smart and their questionnaire. My candidate, like 91% of major party (minor party and independents have an extended deadline) legislative candidates in Iowa, did not complete the questionnaire.
Because no candidate around here completed the questionnaire (except one unopposed incumbent), I judged that -
- there would be no partisan impact, and
- a higher principle would be served, so
I submitted a letter to the local daily paper. In equal terms, it pilloried candidates for their non-response. One of the points I reinforced (it had already been made in the original article I was responding to) was that it is the state leadership of the two political parties that are advising candidates to ignore the PVS questionnaire. The candidates are merely being "good little soldiers" following direction when they refuse to answer.
My letter appeared in print yesterday.
My candidate wanted me to call this morning. He's had "a lot" of phone calls. Silly me, I was already thinking - "How nice. People are responding favorably to what I wrote." Way wrong. The local Demos were upset. How could someone on his campaign committee write such a letter?
To his credit, my candidate was satisfied with my response that I judged the letter to have no net political impact on any candidate or either party. No wonder I like this guy (even if he didn't take my advise and complete the gd questionnaire).
But assuming that I'm right and there is no net political impact, why are the Demos so bent out of shape? And I can think of no other reason than this - Because I was a bad little soldier who had deviated from their playbook. Clearly in Iowa, we have bipartisan agreement to give the voters the "mushroom treatment" - keep 'em in the dark and pile on the manure.