Growing up, every November I watched Mom and Dad go off to the polls and exercise their right to vote, and when I turned 18 got the “You have the responsibility to exercise your right to vote” speech. So, for the past twenty-two years, I’ve been going to the polls to do just that. In those twenty-two years I’ve voted (or not voted) for candidates for the following reasons:

• The candidate was Republican
• The candidate was Democrat
• The candidate was Independent
• The candidate was a longshot
• She was really good looking
• Someone said he was a jerk
• The candidate had a funny name
• The candidate was a friend
• I heard the candidate had a drug problem
• Eeny Meeny Miney...well, you get it.

Some of these are valid reasons to vote for someone, hell, maybe they all are, I don’t know.

In the past few years I’ve found myself putting the signs in my yard, sticking bumper stickers on my car and going to the polls to hand out sample ballots with my candidates name in bold. I’m doing all this, but I sometimes feel like I have no clue about who’s running, what their background is and what their stand on the issues are, and maybe I’m not the only one.

So this is where this web site comes in. I’m going to present all of the candidates side by side with no bias (at least I’ll try), and hopefully help a few people make better decisions on election day.

Can I run this a little differently? Probably - I’m open to suggestions. Just email me, John Hartt at John@votemanassas.com.