Imagine you're a candidate for political office. You receive something called the National Political Awareness Test. It covers a dozen or so topics, from abortion to government reform to the environment. You're given a handful of choices - usually no fewer than seven - to indicate your views on each issue.

It certainly sounds intimidating.

The good news? "Any answer they fill out is the right one," said Aaron Brock, news director of Project Vote Smart.

The bad news is that fewer and fewer candidates are filling out the survey, and the numbers are lower in Iowa than anywhere else in the country. The response rate nationwide has been dropping for three election cycles, and there's anecdotal evidence that parties and political consultants are discouraging candidates from filling out Vote Smart's survey.

Brock called the trend a "candidate rebellion."

Iowa Brings Up the Rear

Project Vote Smart has been surveying candidates since 1992, and since 1996 it has sent surveys to all candidates for governor, U.S. Congress, and state legislatures. The exhaustive survey covers hot-button topics such as abortion and gun control as well as important areas such as spending, taxation, crime, education, employment, energy, and health care.

As the organization was getting started, the response rate was understandably low: 51 percent in 1992 for candidates for Congress. Then the numbers rose steadily, to 63 percent in 1994 and 72 percent in 1996.

But the response rates since then have steadily dropped: to 63 percent in 1998, 60 percent in 2000, and 50 percent so far this year in the states in which the survey deadline has passed. It looks as if candidates are increasingly refusing to make their views known on the most basic legislative issues.

"We are disturbed by the fact that the numbers are dropping," Brock said. Yet "we're also interested when they say no."

Iowa is bringing up the rear with its response rate to the National Political Awareness Test (NPAT). Only one of the four candidates for governor - Jay Robinson of the Green Party - has provided responses to Vote Smart's questions, and only six of the state's 12 candidates for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House responded.

U.S. Representative Jim Nussle of Iowa's First District returned his Project Vote Smart survey, while Democratic challenger Ann Hutchinson did not.

Where Iowa really fails, though, is with its participation rate for the state legislature. Only 16 of the 208 listed candidates - less than 8 percent - returned their surveys.

That's the lowest response rate Project Vote Smart has ever gotten for state legislative candidates. In 2000, roughly 20 percent of Wisconsin and Iowa candidates returned their surveys, and the next-lowest response rate this year has been Ohio at 24 percent.

Among local candidates for the Iowa state legislature, none returned a survey. (See sidebar for a complete listing of local candidates.)

Illinois' survey results were released last week, and the results were somewhat more encouraging. Two of four gubernatorial candidates, 31 of 45 (69 percent) candidates for Congress, and 90 of 292 (31 percent) of General Assembly candidates responded to the survey.

Both candidates for the Illinois Quad Cities' seat in Congress, incumbent Lane Evans and challenger Peter Calderone, returned their surveys. In the races for the Illinois General Assembly, Representative Mike Boland, Representative Joel Brunsvold, and Senator Denny Jacobs did not return their surveys. All three are unopposed.

Project Vote Smart and its National Political Awareness Test are models of even-handedness. The group is rabidly nonpartisan, and its list of founders features a collection of political luminaries from both sides of the political aisle, from Michael Dukakis to Newt Gingrich, from Barry Goldwater to George McGovern. The organization's Web site also offers a wealth of information on elected officials, including biographical facts, ratings from interest groups, voting records, and campaign-finance data.

The NPAT's questions and potential responses are carefully worded, candidates are able to mark multiple viewpoints to express nuanced points of view, and there's always space for additional comments. (See sidebar for a sample question.) Surveys are mailed to every candidate in state and federal legislative elections, as well as to presidential and gubernatorial hopefuls.

Vote Smart ensures that all candidates have ample opportunity to return the survey. They receive three phone calls and two letters from Project Vote Smart, as well as a letter from national partner MSNBC and "a contact from a prominent member of their party," Brock said. In addition, local media partners often contact candidates. Brock estimates that candidates will typically have 12 to 15 contacts encouraging them to fill out the surveys. Those who don't respond "are deliberately withholding this information," he added.

"We are trying to find the answer to only one question: 'Are you the candidate willing to provide voters with this information?'" Brock said. This is "in some ways a much more telling statistic" than how the candidates actually respond to questions, he added.

But why are so few candidates filling out the survey, especially in Iowa?

Brock said that his organization has collected stories from around the country indicating that party leaders and political consultants are discouraging candidates from filling out the survey. "We know it happens in both major political parties," Brock said. "We have documented it in Iowa this year."

Brock said that Roman Lynch, a Republican candidate for the Iowa House, told a Project Vote Smart representative that "members of his party had advised him not to take the test."

A newspaper reporter in Cedar Rapids told Vote Smart that some candidates have been advised not to respond to any survey in writing.

"The Republicans Suggested We Not"

The River Cities' Reader inquired with several candidates about their failure to respond to the survey.

Iowa State Senator Maggie Tinsman, a Republican incumbent, offered several reasons. "The Republicans suggested we not" respond to the Vote Smart survey, she said. "And I also don't like to do national surveys. I wonder what their motives are."

Tinsman said that her discussion with the state party wasn't about surveys in general. "I think I was asking specifically about this survey," she said of the NPAT.

"The governor responded to several surveys ... mostly in-state, Iowa," said Joe Householder, communications director for the campaign of Governor Tom Vilsack, a Democrat. When asked whether Vilsack responded to any surveys that came from outside the state, he said, "I don't know. ... I know the focus has been in-state."

Wayne Hean, Democratic candidate for the Iowa House in District 81, said he hasn't had enough time to fill out all the surveys he receives. "It's a big, thick pile," he said. "You're inundated with them." Hean said that he's only completed a half-dozen or so surveys and that that he still hasn't completed two surveys from organizations he supports.

He added that he wanted to do some research on Project Vote Smart. "I don't know who they are," he said.

Hean said he prioritized surveys, filling out those from organizations that have supported him in the past. He said he avoided surveys with questions that were biased. When read a sample question from Project Vote Smart's survey, Hean said it was not slanted.

Tinsman added that she thinks some surveys are too simplistic. "I object to any survey that says support or oppose an issue," she said. "The nuances are as important as anything else." She also claims she's not being evasive. "I think I should be giving people my opinion," she said.

And there's probably no better way to do that than through Project Vote Smart. Survey responses are available on the group's Web site for all to see, and if candidates respond, the NPAT is an invaluable resource for voters - standardized and trustworthy questions that allow citizens to get a good sense of where candidates stand on the issues in relation to one another.

As the Project Vote Smart Web site says: "The National Political Awareness Test ... is a unique research tool designed to measure one thing: the willingness of candidates to clearly inform the voters of their issue inclinations on the issues they will likely have to deal with if elected."

But when so few candidates are responding, the NPAT isn't very useful. In the Quad Cities, there are only two races included in the Project Vote Smart survey in which all the candidates filled out a survey: the Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate (with Steve Burgauer, Dick Durbin, and Jim Durkin), and the Illinois seat in the U.S. House (with Calderone and Evans).

Project Vote Smart takes the "high road" with its survey, not "flunking" or deriding candidates who don't respond, Brock said. The group leaves it to others to apply the pressure. The Indianapolis Star, for example, refused to endorse any candidate who did not respond to the Vote Smart survey. "That does have some teeth," Brock said.

But, clearly, that kind of pressure isn't common enough, and voters aren't holding politicians accountable at the polls. If the electorate indicated it wouldn't vote for a candidate who didn't provide NPAT answers, politicians wouldn't be able to fill out the surveys fast enough.

"Eventually something's going to have to give here," Brock said, because there's intense pressure on both sides, with media outlets and voters encouraging participation and parties and consultants working against it. One side will eventually win, he predicted. "Everybody's either going to fill it out or not fill it out."

Unfortunately, the current trend suggests the political parties are winning.

For more information about Project Vote Smart, including downloadable survey forms and candidate responses, visit (http://www.vote-smart.org).

Local Candidates and Project Vote Smart National Political Awareness Test

Of the 40 candidates for federal and state offices on local ballots in November, only nine (23 percent) filled out Project Vote Smart's National Political Awareness Test. If you take away candidates for statewide office - governor and U.S. Senate - the response rate is only three of 27 (11 percent). The names of candidates who did respond to the survey are listed below in bold.

Iowa

Governor: Clyde Cleveland, Libertarian, did not respond; Doug Gross, Republican, did not respond; Jay Robinson, Green Party, did respond; Tom Vilsack, Democrat, did not respond.

U.S. Senate: Greg Ganske, Republican, did not respond; Tom Harkin, Democrat, did not respond.

U.S. House: Ann Hutchinson, Democrat, did not respond; Jim Nussle, Republican, did respond.

Iowa Senate District 41: Mark Nelson, Libertarian, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature; Maggie Tinsman, Republican, did not respond.

Iowa Senate District 42: Bryan J. Sievers, Republican, did not respond; Dennis Starling, Democrat, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature.

Iowa Senate District 43: John D. Gumpert, Republican, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature; Rich Moroney, Libertarian, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature; Joe Seng, Democrat, did not respond.

Iowa House District 81: Wayne Hean, Democrat, did not respond; James Van Fossen, Republican, did not respond.

Iowa House District 82: Joe Hutter, Republican, did not respond; Steve Swanson, Democrat, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature.

Iowa House District 83: Mark Henderson, Democrat, did not respond; Steven N. Olson, Republican, did not respond.

Iowa House District 84: Jim Van Fossen, Republican, did not respond; Patricia E. Zamora, Democrat, did not respond.

Iowa House District 85: Nancy Glawe, Republican, did not respond; Jim Lykam, Democrat, did not respond.

Iowa House District 86: Judith Malone, Republican, did not respond; Cindy Winckler, Democrat, did not respond; Lawrence Wittstruck, Libertarian, did not respond but is not listed on Project Vote Smart literature.

Illinois:

Governor: Rod Blagojevich, Democrat, did not respond; Marisellis Brown, Independent, did not respond; Jim Ryan, Republican, did respond; Cal Skinner, Libertarian, did respond.

U.S. Senate: Steve Burgauer, Libertarian, did respond; Dick Durbin, Democrat, did respond; Jim Durkin, Republican, did respond.

U.S. House: Peter Calderone, Republican, did respond; Lane Evans, Democrat, did respond.

Illinois Senate District 36: Denny Jacobs, Democrat, did not respond.

Illinois House District 71: Mike Boland, Democrat, did not respond.

Illinois House District 72: Joel Brunsvold, Democrat, did not respond.

Sample Vote Smart Questions

Indicate which principles you support (if any) concerning abortion.
a) Abortions should always be illegal.
b) Abortions should always be legally available.
c) Abortions should be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy.
d) Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape.
e) Abortions should be legal when the life of the woman is endangered.
f) Eliminate public funding for abortions and public funding of organizations that advocate or perform abortions.
g) Other or expanded principles. (There is space for a candidate to write additional comments.)

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding welfare.
a) Support current time limits on welfare benefits.
b) Increase employment and job-training programs for welfare recipients.
c) Provide tax incentives to businesses that hire welfare recipients.
d) Provide child care for welfare recipients who work.
e) Increase access to public transportation for welfare recipients who work.
f) Eliminate government-funded welfare programs.
g) Re-direct welfare funding to faith-based and community-based private organizations.
h) Use federal TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) funds to expand state services to include the working poor.
i) Other or expanded principles. (There is space for a candidate to write additional comments.)

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