McMillin, VanRaaphorst: Candidate Questionnaire Form

This race in our local community for Michigan State Representative has been highly emotionally charged.  My last post was an attempt to state what each candidate had posted on their website and comments from an interview in a local paper.  I asked people to read this information and post who and why they choose their candidate in a positive message.  At the end of the post I stated my opinion based on the information I had.

Well, that did not seem to go as planned.  It turned into a negative attack on one candidate with no positive reasons to vote for the other.  Then it expanded into many other subjects with the spin doctors and targeted tag lines to cause confusion to push hidden agendas.  I thought it would be simple; state your opinion without bashing the other candidate, I was wrong.

Then I decided to create this Candidate Questionnaire Form and ask both candidates to fill it out to give us a better vision of their background, vision and plan for the State of Michigan.  I appreciated both candidates trust and information in filling out the form so I can post it on the Patch.  We also involved Kristin Bull in the process to ensure it is a fair process and the information submitted to me was accurately posted.  I also gave both candidates the opportunity to read both forms prior to the posting to ensure they agreed my document is accurate and see the other candidates form.

Now all that is done and all parties; Tom, Joanna and Kristin agree these documents are accurate and what they submitted to me.

The Challenge:

"If you cannot say something nice, don't say it!" 

Read both forms, make a personal assessment of each candidate and comment on why you are choosing your candidate in a POSITIVE way without bashing the other.  Let us all hear the various POSITIVE reasons why we are choosing one candidate.  I believe this will help the person with an open mind make a rational choice.

I also ask the NEGATIVE comments to not be posted.  I guess I am the optimist and hope people will take this serious and not push their hidden agendas.  I am not stupid, I understand this will happen, so let us all just ignore these comments and they will get the message that they are just meaningless noise.

Based on this information, who and why would you choose one candidate?