With just more than a week remaining before Adams County voters head to the polls, the political season is in full swing.

But do most folks care?

And, more important, is anyone paying attention to what’s being said by candidates?

The release of the latest Harry Potter book seemed to draw more interested voters than did some recent candidates forums.

Presumably wizards and Muggles are more interesting than public fund management and local government.

Last week, I had the chance to interview nearly all of the candidates in the races for sheriff, circuit clerk and supervisor.

One candidate chuckled when he relayed that at a recent meet the candidates’ event the candidates outnumbered the voters in the audience.

The candidate’s thought was, “Why go to these? The other candidates are just going to steal your ideas.”

Sadly, he had a good point.

Election officials have said that since this year’s field of candidates is among the largest in memory, the turnout is also likely to be high.

A high voter turnout on Election Day and a low public interest in “meet the candidates” events would seem to indicate a high number of less-than-ideally informed voters.

Inside today’s edition, we’re publishing a guide to this year’s election. Inside you’ll see information about each candidate and what they say they stand for in the race or what they say they’ll do if elected.

Candidates, and their packs of followers, have some interesting thoughts about what they can do in office.

From creating jobs to reorganizing the public school system to somehow putting computer in every home, some supervisor candidates seem to believe they have a little Harry Potter magic in them. Further, many of them plan to fund all of the projects through some sort of Hogwarts School of Grants.

The one thing that seems to make me at once laugh and get frustrated is a candidate’s claim that he or she will work hard to recruit industry to the area.

While that’s an admirable statement, it’s akin to a Miss America contestant saying she’ll fight for world peace. It sounds good, but practically speaking, it’s a bit hollow and it’s not exactly why we should be voting for a county supervisor.

Supervisors don’t create jobs, unless they spend your tax dollars to do so.

Private businesses create jobs. All they need supervisors and other elected officials to do is either get out of their way or work with them to make the expansion or relocation plans more attractive by providing financial incentives.

Usually, by the time such incentives come into play, the decision is to locate here is almost always already made.

Almost all of the supervisor candidates had things to say about job creation or at least the need for jobs, but few of them were very well versed in how the county’s current system of economic development works.

Natchez and Adams County have jointly funded the EDA for years and years, but many of the challengers seem uninformed in how the system works or the county supervisors’ role would be in job creation.

More interesting are the number of candidates claiming to have something to do with past job creation moves — the prison that’s under construction, for example.

Perhaps I’ve missed it, but I have yet to see anything that explained how key the supervisors were to bringing the prison to the area.

The field of candidates is pretty thick.

Voters would be wise to read between the lines on candidates’ promises, realizing that none of them knows magic and leave the fantasy and magical promises to the book authors.

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