Editor,
The Daily Lobo has no one to blame for an incomplete article except itself, and as editor in chief, I hold Riley Bauling responsible. A comprehensive article of the candidates' main issues should have been an easy article to produce, since an election is not exactly late-breaking news.
These candidates have held the same positions on the issues addressed in your questionnaire since long before primaries. Why, then, would you only allow them four days to respond, including the weekend? The days immediately prior to the election are the most crucial for a campaign, and while five questions might seem easy to the lackadaisical reporter who neglected to submit them earlier, to the overstressed campaigns, a response probably just wasn't an option. The fact that only six out of 10 campaigns questioned were able to reply within your limited time frame is proof enough that the error was not made by the politicians.
The blame continued to be shifted in the editorial shortly thereafter, blaming the students, who apparently brought this on themselves by their poor voter turnout record in the past. If this was truly an issue that the Lobo wanted to remedy, it would have been running articles about the elections for at least a week prior, putting special emphasis on issues that might drive young voters to the polls, such as minimum wage increases and Bond B, which gives money to UNM for research. The least you could have done was list the voting locations for the UNM area.
Shame on you, Daily Lobo. Procrastination never pays.
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Bethany Weeks
UNM student
Editor's note: All candidates told the Daily Lobo they had adequate time to respond to the five questions. The Daily Lobo published articles on the Quality of Life tax on Oct. 16 and on Bond B on Oct. 31. It published an early location voting box on Oct. 24, an editorial on Oct. 31 about the benefits of voting early, a voting information box on Election Day and early voting locations on its Web site every day the week before the election.
