There are some tough choices to make in Tuesday’s election.

Friday, November 03, 2000

There are some tough choices to make in Tuesday’s election. Candidates range all across the board from those running for the local conservation district right up to the president of the United States.

Needless to say, it’s been a busy few weeks in the Herald’s newsroom as we report on events leading up to the election. On top of that, the Herald’s editors spent the better part of a week and a half interviewing about a dozen and a half candidates running for posts from the Austin City Council up to the U.S. Senate.

We’ve had the chance to discuss issues with all of these candidates; only a few didn’t respond to our invitation to be interviewed. The outcome of these interviews are the result of the first three election endorsements that you see in today’s newspaper; the rest of the endorsements will appear in Sunday’s Herald.

Some of the races were a clear choice for us to issue an endorsement; others were a tough call, and we’ll tell you when that is the case. We want you to know how and why we feel about certain candidates in this year’s election.

One thing we do know. There are a number of dedicated people out there who want to serve the public. The candidates we met with care about those they represent, or want to represent. Public service is by no stretch of the imagination something easy to do, let alone get in to.

Our endorsements are for the express purpose of letting you know how your daily newspaper feels about the candidates who are running. We don’t purport to be experts, but we also are intimate with the issues because of our day-to-day coverage of events that affect each of our lives.

Some of you will disagree with our endorsements, and some of you will think we’re right on the mark. They’re only a matter of opinion.

After we met with all the candidates, the editors and the publisher of this newspaper sat down and discussed our conversations and decided who we would endorse. None of these decisions came easily. It was only with the careful input and deliberation of our people that we were able to come up with these opinions.

Today is the deadline for letters to the editor regarding the election. We intend to include every letter that we’ve received by today in Sunday’s newspaper if we haven’t published them yet. You may agree or disagree with our endorsements, however, we will be unable to publish any responses prior to the election.

We do urge everyone to make the ultimate decision, though, and that is to vote for the candidates of their own choice on Tuesday.

As you can see, especially in today’s endorsements, we’ve endorsed some who perhaps don’t have a chance to win the election. However, the sole purpose of our endorsements are to issue a statement for those candidates who will best serve our readers. We don’t ask anyone to vote in the same vein as our endorsements. We only ask that you read the endorsements and use the information contained in them to help formulate your own opinions with what you’ve already read or heard about the candidates.

If you can’t vote on Tuesday for any reason, don’t hesitate to take advantage of absentee balloting at the courthouse on Saturday. With the close calls expected in several ballots this year, every vote does indeed count.