Actually, you don’t have to be Dr. Doolittle to talk with candidates for public office. You just have to be willing to try. Opportunities abound — whether at campaign events, stopping by their offices, or calling them on the phone.

On behalf of hundreds of thousands citizens across Pennsylvania who count on Pennsylvania Family Institute’s Voter’s Guide, I’m asking you to try to talk with the candidates.

Each year, an unfortunately large number of candidates (especially incumbents) refuse to answer our voter’s guide survey. For whatever reason, they choose to ignore our repeated mailings, telephone calls and emails. Apparently they would prefer to hide their positions on issues during election season, and run on name recognition only.

Alas, we have found that when constituents make the contact, the response rate goes up dramatically. So we are actively seeking volunteers who will take a little bit of their time to directly contact the candidates in your local area, and ask them to answer our survey. It’s a great public service, and an experience that will help you as a citizen and voter.

If you can help, please contact Emily Shaheen in our office at (800) 597-9605, or email her at eshaheen@pafamily.org.

And now, with apologies to Dr. Doolitle,

If we could talk to the candidates, learn their languages
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the candidates, talk with the candidates,
Ask for thoughts on issues from the candidates,
Then they could take some time and write those answers down and send to us.