Elections 2012

The Democrat will face Green Party candidate Audrey Clement and Republican Mark Kelly in the special election.

I met with the five Democrats over the course of the past week and taped interviews with them at about 20 minutes each. The candidates were asked different questions, questions based on statements from the candidates’ websites and public statements they have made.

The answers shown here are edited for clarity and brevity. The answers are quoted verbatim with "ahs" and "ums" taken out. If something more substantive was removed, we indicated that with an elipsis (…). A pause or sudden change of direction is indicated with a double hyphen (--); double hyphens do not indicate omitted words. If we inserted something for clarity we used square brackets [like these].

I like the long-form of the responses as I think they show the candidates’ personalities as well as their ideas and policy goals. You’ll find, too, that the candidates work through answers, showing nuance and complete ideas that might not make it into shorter interviews. It makes for convoluted sentences at times, but that’s the nature of a discussion-based interview, rather than something that approximates an interrogation.

I’d like to say thank you to the candidates for taking time out of their busy campaigning to sit and talk with me. You can find their responses, and complete coverage on our Elections 2012 page.