Voters Get To Evaluate Applications Candidates Submit Resumes, Cover Letters For Your Approval

The jobs are important; the pay and benefits can be impressive.

The applicants are numerous and varied. How’s a boss to pick?

Some might start with a level playing field, letting each applicant tell a little about herself or himself.

The Spokesman-Review asked candidates for three positions that are hotly contested in the Sept. 15 primary to do just that: Tell you, our readers, why you should hire them for the jobs of U.S. senator, Spokane County commissioner and state representative for position 1 in Spokane’s 4th District.

The letters and resumes can help readers whittle the list of job-seekers, and concentrate on a few finalists. They’re an experiment, designed to supplement, not replace, our regular coverage of political races.

Today, letters and resumes from county commissioner candidates appear on pages B1 and B2. Submissions from candidates for the contested primary in the 4th Legislative District will be published later this week.

The U.S. Senate is arguably the most important job on the primary ballot, with 13 candidates running. All of them were mailed a request for a 250-word letter of application and a one-page resume. Eleven responded.

Those letters appear on pages A8 and A9.

Democrat Thor Amundson has no listed phone number and couldn’t be contacted for a reminder. Reform Party candidate Charlie Jackson said he was too busy with work.

Most letters were close to the 250-word limit. Those that weren’t were trimmed, to be fair to candidates who followed the request.

The candidates most people consider the frontrunners - Democratic incumbent Patty Murray, Republicans Linda Smith and Chris Bayley, and Reform Party-endorsed candidate Steve Thompson - submitted letters and resumes on time, honed almost to the word.

Others met the newspaper part way. Socialist Workers Party candidate Nan Bailey sent a press release, not a letter. Democrat James Stokes sent a short, handwritten letter from American Lake Veterans Hospital, where he lives. He couldn’t manage a resume, he said.

Republican Warren Hanson said he didn’t have a resume. He was a commercial fisherman, he said, and never really needed one.

Then there’s Democrat Robert Medley. Some of his proposals, particularly on homosexuals and minorities, will be offensive to many readers. But that’s what he says he wants to do if he becomes a senator.

The newspaper’s editors thought it was important for voters to view his ideas along with all the other candidates.

Remember: You’re the boss. These are the applicants. Read about them and decide who deserves more study as you search for the best candidate to hire.

The newspaper will provide more information in the coming weeks to help you with that choice.