Mark Hammond, Secretary of State, Republican

Hammond
12:30 p.m.
Since becoming secretary of state four years ago, Mark
Hammond has been working hard to modernize and streamline the office.
But he doesn’t want to abandon the 1895 model for selecting the
officeholder. He thinks voters should still have to pick the secretary
of state, even though 95 percent of them probably couldn’t begin to
tell you what he does. “This is just a gimmick of my opponent,” he says
of the proposal to let the governor appoint instead. Never mind that
this newspaper has advocated it for at least 15 years.