Have you ever Googled somebody? It's the new national pastime -- a way to check up on somebody before that first date, before you hire them, before you go to work for them.

Turns out it's also a great way to find out about a candidate before you vote!

So that's what I did to find out where Executive Councilor David Wheeler (R-Milford) stands on some issues of concern to me.

Follow along... it's easy and quite revealing... and I'll explain how it works at the end. But for now, just note that Google can be instructed to search only a single website (we'll be limiting our search to the official NH.GOV website) , and it will show you the relevant context around "hits" it finds for selected search phrases - so you can easily see a summary of hundreds of pages of documents on a single screen, without having to wade through each of the results to find the relevant passage.

Before we go on, you'll have to click the "Read More" link below and to the right, to see this entire article and the links. Click it now!

Here goes... Notice how often Wheeler votes alone, against his own Governor and the other four Republican Executive councilors, when they try to do something good for Women, Children, Safety and Education!

(Note: all results will open in a new window. Close it to come back here)

WHEELER ON CHILD CARE - Click here to see votes from Exec Council minutes

WHEELER ON EDUCATION - Click here to see votes from Exec Council minutes

WHEELER ON LITERACY - Click here to see votes from Exec Council minutes

(The full text of this assault on literacy reads: "#60 - Authorized with Councilor Wheeler voting NO, to accept a donation of Harry Potter series books and other assorted books from the Children's Literacy Foundation of Hanover, NH. This total value of this donation is $1,415.79.")

WHEELER ON CHILD ABUSE - Click here to see votes from Exec Council minutes


So, as an educated voter, now I know to cast my vote for DFNH Dozen candidate Debora Pignatelli, instead of David Wheeler!

One important caveat with Google searches like this: Be sure to watch out for an elipsis (three little dots ...) in the search results summary for each "hit". If the three dots appear anywhere BETWEEN your first search phrase and your second, this indicates that the phrases aren't found near each other and may be out of context. The search terms I used above were tested to minimize this effect, but a few of the citations found are false positives. When in doubt, click on Google's "Cached" link under the summary, and you can quickly scan the full document with your search terms highlighted, to confirm that the candidate really DID vote against ... Apple Pie???

I'm posting an article with tips on how to do this type of Google search on your own. It will appear as a comment under this article. If you try it and circulate similar searches about candidates, PLEASE be sure to warn recipients of the elipsis. We want to educate and inform - not mislead!