Article did get an A, but …
OK, so maybe it was a test to see if we were paying attention. Hey, 90 percent of the numbers were right in the table that accompanied the front page story recently about how much various politicians paid for each vote they obtained, so according to current school standards — admittedly not a good standard by which to be judged — WHT got an “A” and can be proud of itself.
On the other hand, getting one major number wrong is why one American spaceship crashed into Mars rather than go around it. So numbers do count. And back in the ancient days of folks using a slide rule – what’s dat they would say now? – to make calculations, we were taught to look at numbers and make a rough estimate of the right answer. That’s why when I looked at your front page table of numbers, I knew right away the number for Pete Hoffman was way off. You just can’t spend $4,590 for 4,235 votes and then be announced to have spent over $8 per vote. Just think about it – the two numbers are fairly close in size, so the answer just has to be somewhere between one and two. Sure enough, Pete spent $1.08 for each and every vote – not the $8.49 announced in the table and in the accompanying article. Editor, get thyself a proof reader worth their salt.
Jim Monk
Captain Cook
Editor’s note: Pete Hoffman did spend $8.49 per vote, according to the West Hawaii analysis on campaign spending, but chart of vote and spending breakdowns that accompanied the Sept. 6 story incorrectly stated how much Hoffman had spent. The correct spending figure was $35,973 — not $4,590 as the chart incorrectly stated.