Interviewing governor candidates

What would you ask if you had a chance to meet a politician face-to-face who wanted to be your governor?

Today several of our staff had a chance to interview current Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his challenger, Ron Saxton, who are competing for the job in Oregon.

Our sister newspapers in the East Oregonian Publishing Company had about an hour to ask questions, and Capital Press journalists had about half an hour to concentrate on agricultural questions.

We were fortunate that even though these two men are extremely busy with their campaign, we were given such a block of time.

Within the next few days, our website will feature the audio of our interviews with the politicians. We will also soon publish our endorsements (Oct. 20) of who we think will make the best governor.

While all of our newspapers had a chance to work together to interview the politicians, we each have the editorial independence to decide who we want to endorse and what we want to say. That is important for the readers we serve: for example, the Daily Astorian, serves readers on the Oregon Coast who may have different concerns and questions then the East Oregonian that covers eastern Oregon.

Capital Press serves an agricultural audience, and we think of the farmers, ranchers and also the people who have small woodlots.

And yes, there have been times in the past when our various newspapers have taken different stands on who should be governor, whether a measure should be approved or not, and even what we think will be the implications of how people vote in an election.
Will everyone agree with our assessments?

No. Part of being a democracy is being able to hold different points of view and being able to freely express them.

That is one of the reasons we hope our readers will share their views with us, by e-mailing us at opinion@capitalpress.com so we can share their viewpoints with others.

We welcome your letters.

Agriculture
Politics
Oregon
Ted Kulongoski
Ron Saxton