If your momma raised you correctly, she probably taught you not to talk about religion or politics in polite company.

My mom and my dad did a great job in teaching my siblings and me right from wrong. And I’m almost certain we covered the “religion and politics” debate at some point.

Somewhere, though, I must have gone astray from those good, early lessons.

So long as you discuss things civilly and with an open mind, almost any topic can be safely discussed.

A good case in point is my belief that community newspapers such as this one should do all that we can to provide information to voters prior to an election.

We’ve tried to that in the past few weeks. Sometimes it works well and sometimes we stub our toe a bit.

We stubbed a toe on Saturday when we ran a map of the county showing the supervisor districts. We inadvertently flip flopped districts 4 and 5. We’re republishing the corrected maps today and apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Throughout our news pages recently we’ve tried to give candidates plenty of room to tell their stories to our readers — and their prospective supporters.

We’ve published a special section devoted to the election showing basic candidate information side-by-side with their opponents.

And for the last few days, we’ve published our editorial board’s endorsements for several key races. Those endorsements are perhaps the most taboo of all. Not only are we “talking” politics, but also saying candidly which candidates we feel should earn your vote and why.

So we’ve put our thoughts on politics out there for the whole world to see.

But why in the world do we feel the need to endorse candidates in a political race any way?

Just saying nothing is much easier than spending the time to meet with each candidate, getting to know them a bit and asking them detailed questions.

But doing nothing is the easy way out.

Doing or saying nothing doesn’t help the community get better; it does little but protect us from criticism.

This newspaper is sometimes critical of our public officials when we feel their actions deserve criticism.

Usually, we try to hold that criticism for times when either the officials’ inaction is stifling progress or when actions seem to go counter to the public good.

But if we’re going to be critical, we must also be willing to stick our necks out and tell you the kinds of person we think are most suited for the job.

While politics can sometimes come down to a popularity contest, it should be based on qualifications.

Sometimes the most popular or most likeable candidate may be the least qualified.

We’ve attempted to sort through that logically, as our managing editor, Julie Finley, and I sat down to interview the candidates and ultimately decide whom to endorse.

It’s not personal; it’s business. That may sound strange, but we believe firmly that government should run as much like a business as possible. Companies don’t hire CEOs and other leaders just because they like them. They hire them because of the skills they bring to the table.

The same should go for county elected officials, too.

While it may not be considered good form to talk about politics in polite company, not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences.

We’re not always correct in our endorsements — hindsight is always 20-20 — but we try our best to be truthful and always follow a simple rule: Say what you mean and mean what you say.

That’s a “momma” lesson I’ll never forget.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.