Published: October 10, 2008 11:44 pm            

News & Eagle accepts letters supporting politicians

It’s the middle of October, just three weeks from a general election and a presidential election, and that means it’s time we’ll be seeing more letters to the editor in support of political candidates.

The News & Eagle welcomes endorsement letters for particular candidates. This newspaper will be making its own political endorsements in the coming weeks, so it’s fair that we accept letters from our readers on behalf of candidates.

There are a few rules, however, when it comes to submitting an endorsement letter for a candidate.

First, the News & Eagle will run as many letters as possible; however, we may not publish all the letters we receive. We will be looking for high-quality letters. We will give preference to letters that include reasons voters should support a candidate — not just reasons voters should vote against a particular candidate. Be thoughtful in your logic and reasoning when you submit your endorsement. Only letter writers who reside in our primary readership area (Garfield, Kingfisher, Major, Woods, Woodward, Alfalfa, Grant and Blaine counties) will have their letters considered for publication — so letter writers from Oklahoma City, Tulsa or Los Angeles or any other state shouldn’t bother to send us their letters.

Second, the newspaper will be on the lookout for those infamous “chain” campaign letters that campaigns send out to supporters and ask them to just sign their name to and send to the newspaper. We want original work by out letter writers — so, don’t take sentences or phrases from those campaign letters and send them to us as your own. We will be watching, and any such letters will go to the bottom of the heap.

And, third, please get your letters to us by Oct. 22. If there is a large influx of letters, that will give us time to save some to run the week of Oct. 27. No reader endorsement letters will be published after Oct. 31.

Remember, your letters must be 300 words or less and contain a name and daytime phone number for verification purposes. Also, letter writers will be allowed to send only one letter for endorsement, so pick one particular race or candidate to write about.

We look forward to hearing from our readers about this election. We look forward to a spirited reader discussion on our opinion page.