Sep. 28--Politicians should be courageous.

Elected officials need to be able to stand up and state their political convictions to the world. They need to be self-affirmed enough to fight for those convictions and for the wants and needs of their constituents.

Sadly, according to the results of Project Vote Smart's most recent Political Courage test, too many are lacking that trait.

Project Vote Smart asks state and national candidates to take the test every two years. The test asks candidates to indicate their support (or lack) of various issues. The questions don't just come out of the proverbial left field. Project Vote Smart is a nonpartisan national research organization that was founded in 2000 by a host of past politicians, civil servants and others -- including former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and former U.S. senators George McGovern and Newt Gingrich. The Political Courage Test is drafted by more than 200 journalists, political scientists and leaders of the two major and third political parties.

It is a legitimate organization asking legitimate questions of those we might elect to public office.

Candidates should answer the questions.

Some do. We applaud most of the Aberdeen-area candidates for state Legislature for taking part. Eight of 12 (66.7 percent) took

Project

Vote

Smart's

test. The total is considerably higher than the state average of 38 percent.

Unfortunately, none of the congressional candidates took Project Vote Smart's test. Brandon Horton, press secretary for the organization, gave one possible reason for that. He said that national campaigns spend a lot of money to develop and control a candidate's message. Because they want to maintain that, they don't complete the test.

That's a shame and could easily look like a sham. If you are running for public office your political views should be an open book. A candidate's message should be sharp, crisp and transparent enough for voters to easily understand and make a voting decision.

Bravo to all the candidates who participated in the survey.

Check out the results at www.votesmart.org. You can find this, and much more politically related information on that Web site.

Project Vote Smart provides a tremendous resource for anyone interested in knowing more about government and our elected representatives.

When candidates participate it benefits us -- and them.

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