To the Editor:
In a time when state and national politics have hit an all-time low in terms of civility and mutual respect, we want our campaigns for Tillamook County Commissioner to be positive. We are committed to running campaigns based on issues and not character assassination. This commitment to one another and to Tillamook County voters is reflective of our personal values and we believe it reflects the values of our community.
We may not be able to engineer a return to civility in politics at a national level, but we can start at home. We will not attack each other in word, in print or in deed. We ask our well-intentioned supporters to help us to run clean campaigns by sharing positive messages about the candidate you support. Neither of us is running shadow campaigns where we let our supporters do the dirty work and appear to keep our hands clean. We are denouncing dirty work in this campaign.
The truth is that Tillamook County is a small community, we are connected to one another in many cases by a few short steps. This is our home. Our families and friends live here. Neither of us wants to win by being ugly. Neither of us wants our families, friends or coworkers to open the pages of the local paper to see personal attacks against us. We don’t want to burn bridges with one another or with each other’s supporters. We anticipate that we will have many opportunities to collaborate on public service projects in the future and we want to maintain a good working relationship. Moreover, we like and respect each other. In fact, we are praying for each other in this election and praying for the highest good for our community.
As a point of interest, we will put our campaign signs out again after Labor Day. There isn’t a rule against leaving signs up between the primary and general elections, and some of our supporters have kept signs up from the primary election, but there is a local tradition of taking them down over the summer and putting them back up in the fall.
Thank you for voting in the November election.
Mary Faith Bell and Adam Schwend
Candidates for Tillamook County Commissioner