Last week, I wrote about the races for statewide offices. Some contacted us that they had made decisions about who to support different than I.

I respect their decision and yours as to who you choose in the process. Voting is a personal decision-making process.

My goal is simply to encourage you to vote according to your best judgement.

The way I decided my choices was a careful evaluation of what each is saying in their campaign.

In all campaigns, there are many issues swirling around the candidates.

Some are important and some are less important, while even other issues are of no issue in an election.

For me, I focus on my basic beliefs as a standard to follow. I first eliminate any candidate that does not hold the same shared values I hold.

In your case, you may more closely align with the Democratic Party while I, the Republican Party. We make those decisions based on the overall views of the role of government in your family’s life and your business.

Each Republican candidate, I believe, fits in this basic conservative mode of thought process.

The next step for me is to listen to the issues on which a candidate focuses. For instance, one candidate for governor and another for lieutenant governor have made monuments to Confederate Generals a center piece in their campaigns. One to protect them, the latter, the opposite position of removing them all. While I am a strong supporter of protecting our history, neither, if elected, will have any authority regarding keeping or removing the statues.  The issue will play out in court. The federal and state law protects such monuments to veterans. The federal law might change over time, but it is unlikely the General Assembly of Virginia would remove laws protecting those statues.

Another instance deals with tax issues.  One Republican candidate for governor is campaigning on raising the tax on gasoline, but the General Assembly has rejected that idea in the past. It is unlikely that his election would change any vote of any delegate or senator.  Another has campaigned claiming that he will eliminate the income tax in counties that border North Carolina and Tennessee.

Another candidate, this time a Democrat, has focused his campaign on stopping a propane gas line in which the governor has no say.

The decision about interstate pipelines is under the purview of the federal government, not the governor of one state.

The other Democrat candidate has gone to Southwest Virginia and implied that he wants to start a new university there.

Don’t let yourself be distracted by such rhetoric. We need a governor that is focused on growing our economy.  As I wrote last week, Ed Gillespie has earned my support because his campaign is built totally on improving our economy.

Frank Ruff represents Lunenburg in the state Senate. His email address is Sen.Ruff@verizon.net.