The Lincoln County News team recently wrapped up our candidates forums for the 2022 elections. If you were unable to attend, articles about all four events are available at lcnme.com and recordings are posted on the LCN Facebook page.
As this was the first season of forums for most of our staff, we figured this would be a learning experience. However, there were some lessons that took us by surprise.
We went into the season knowing we did not want to take questions from the audience during the forum. The last time we hosted in-person forums was 2018, and unfortunately the tone in political discussions has taken a nosedive into incivility. (If at this moment you’re thinking “not my side,” please know that our acting editor has taken harsh words from people on all points along the political spectrum.)
We did, however, want to make sure we were asking the questions that were on most voters’ minds. The editorial in the Sept. 1 edition called for readers to submit suggestions for questions, a message that was repeated in the Sept. 15 edition’s editorial. We received some thoughtful suggestions, some of which we broadened out and turned into questions that needed more than a yes-or-no answer.
The first question we knew we would absolutely ask all candidates is what are the biggest concerns they’ve heard about from voters while campaigning. The answers told us whether the questions we brought to the forum were a good representation of what they were hearing — thankfully, the answer was yes — and provided the candidates time to talk about a topic that might not come up later in the evening.
The candidates then dug into questions about statewide issues. We asked about what the Legislature could do to protect the lobster industry, ensure that residents stayed warm this winter, support small businesses, address the housing crisis, and make sure that no residents were dealing with food insecurity. If candidates pretty heavily covered a topic in their introductions, we didn’t ask the related question later, in an effort to avoid repetition.
From the second forum on, we added two broad questions dealing with education (“How would you suggest the Legislature improve the quality of the K-12 public education system?”) and health care (“What is the biggest issue in health care right now and how would you like to see it addressed?”) Phrasing the questions this way gave candidates the latitude to address any concerns they had in either arena.
We unfortunately would not have had time to ask these questions in the first forum, as there were seven candidates in attendance at the event as opposed to four, five, and six, respectively.
While we continued to welcome questions once the forums got underway, we noticed something interesting after the second forum, which featured four candidates who agreed with one another on most of the issues and differed on approaches to how to address these problems.
The questions submitted got a lot more pointed and partisan, including abortion, the 2020 election, and book banning, as well as critical race theory and child sexualization.
While we understand that these are topics about which people have very strong opinions, there were questions that allowed candidates to bring up the most important topics on which they were running. Some did, but when asked about health care and education, the majority of candidates used the time to talk about prescription drug prices and growing vocational programs.
There are less than 20 days until the election, and we encourage voters who want to know the answers to those questions to reach out to the candidates directly. We will attest to how they all worked to make themselves available to answer our questions, both at forums and for profiles that have appeared in this paper. In order to have a functioning democracy, citizens must get involved and run to represent their constituents. We are fortunate that so many have come forward to give us choices here in Lincoln County, and that they took their time to get their message out.
As for us, we’re going to wrap up with the profiles for the individuals running unopposed for Lincoln County sheriff and district attorney in the Oct. 27 edition. That will also be the final edition in which we will accept letters related to the election, so if you haven’t written in support of a candidate, get it in by the end of the day on Monday, Oct. 24. We’ll make our best efforts to get in letters that meet our guidelines, which can be found at lcnme.com/other-submissions-guide.
On the day of the election, news staff will man the email, phones, and, yes, even the fax machine to compile results. We’ll post the results as we get them on lcnme.com, with a full recap to follow in the next day’s paper.
We’d like to give one final thank you to all of the candidates for their willingness to participate and to serve if elected. During a time in which casting shade on “the media” can win political points, it’s nice to see local politicians trust their community newspaper.
