Editorial writers are privileged to meet and take the measure of those who seek elective office. We've met dozens and dozens over the years.

Well, we can tell you that we have rarely met a candidate who is as good a man as Matt Aitken is.

Usually it's the candidates who make the promises, but we can promise this to the voters of Augusta Commission District 1: You will be absolutely delighted and proud to have Matt Aitken as your next commissioner.

We guarantee Aitken will listen to his constituents. He will work hard for them. He will work exceedingly well with his fellow commissioners. He will not only help bridge the racial gap on the commission, but may serve as the bridge himself.

A top operator with a 12-year perfect attendance record at Olin Corp., Aitken has become well-known and well-regarded for his civic and ministerial work. He has been instrumental from the start in the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast -- a monthly coming together of Augustans of all races and religious denominations who break bread and pray for the city. He's been involved in the Martin Luther King Observance Committee. And he ministers to prison inmates -- as he was ministered to himself as a troubled and rudderless youth incarcerated for drugs.

Matt Aitken is a testimony to the power of the word of God to transform lives utterly. Today, he wears his faith on his sleeve -- a sleeve attached to a shirt worn by an upstanding citizen, husband, father, civic activist and elder at First Presbyterian Church.

As befitting such a man, Aitken's grass-roots supporters are enthusiastic and diverse, and include the Richmond County Committee for Good Government and some of the city core's biggest boosters. They're excited about Matt Aitken's candidacy for the same reasons we are: Because they know he has the capacity to raise the level of discourse on the Augusta Commission, to help unify the city, and to move it forward as never before.

We wholeheartedly urge voters in District 1 to send the rest of the city a gift: Send Matt Aitken as your representative on the Augusta Commission Nov. 3.