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'Convicted?' and other key questions for candidates

The letter, from a regular contributor to our Fence Post column, provided some encouragement and some gentle prodding.

In it, writer Edna Heatherington of Glen Ellyn notes that the Daily Herald recently has been writing "informative articles" about some of the races other than the endless saga for governor. "In the long months since the February primary, many of us are suffering irritation and fatigue from the constant coverage of just two of the four candidates for governor and two of the four candidates for the U.S. Senate," she writes in the letter slated to run in our Saturday editions.

She notes, too, that some voters might be surprised to learn that, unlike some prior years, there are mostly contested races from the top to the bottom of the DuPage County ballot.

Heatherington gives us advice on our coverage of these stories: "How about more reporting on issues rather than forecasts and hype? It's not really useful to have the talents of journalists absorbed in reporting weekly polls or the content of advertisements. How about the substance of the regional economics around public transportation; or the problem of flooding in the counties?"

Hey, I'm glad you asked that question.

There are, indeed, far more contested than uncontested races on the Nov. 2 DuPage ballot. Yes, the clerk, sheriff, treasurer and regional school superintendent get a free pass, but all other county, state legislative and Congressional races have two or more candidates seeking office. If that doesn't float your boat, you can vote your pocketbook on one countywide (College of DuPage) and several local referendums.

It might not be as titillating as the barrage of allegations about Alexi Giannoulias' ties to the bank that loaned money to shady characters, Mark Kirk's misremembering of how he filled out his military resume, Bill Brady driving his Porsche while not paying income taxes and whatever the complaint de jour happens to be about Pat Quinn but we really do try to take an issues-based approach to covering the candidates in the races.

A good example is the candidate questionnaires we invite all candidates to fill out. Yes, a sad fact of today's state of affairs is that we now ask all candidates, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime? If yes, please describe." ("Absolutely not!" one candidate emphatically replied.) Otherwise, though, we try to tailor the questions to the particular races.

In the races for county board, for instance, we ask questions about the controversial DuPage Tech Park (where virtually no technology is going on); job creation; the somewhat unaccountable "Choose DuPage" commission and the DuPage Water Commission, a little-covered agency until it was discovered the group had lost track of $69 million or so.

Sometimes our efforts to be topical backfire. At the time we sent the questionnaires to the candidates, it looked as though Navistar had abandoned its move to Lisle and was planning to relocate in another state. We asked our candidates what they might do to stop that. But as you loyal readers know, heroic efforts intervened and it's all but a lock Navistar will be moving into the former Alcatel-Lucent building on Warrenville Road.

Of our candidates for the General Assembly, we ask for their views on the state's budget crisis, pension legislation, civil unions, finance caps and whether public employees performance reviews ought to be public.

Congressional candidates are queried about government debt, transportation, immigration reform and government oversight of offshore oil drilling, among other things.

We had nearly 100 percent compliance with our candidates, so their unexpurgated answers will appear soon on dailyherald.com. We also will publish them in the Neighbor section, starting Sunday with the county board chairman candidates.

We editors also are in the process of doing in-person interviews with about 150 candidates in our circulation area to assist in making recommendations to our editorial board on who to endorse. Those endorsements are scheduled to begin running in mid-October.

jdavis@dailyherald.com