Democrats are ready to take the lead, McCain’s choices politics as usual
Abdul Khan
A lot of students on this campus don’t follow politics too closely, but this is the year to start. This year Republicans and Democrats can agree on one thing; we have great candidates for each party and some awesome choices for strategy.
The Democrats are fed up with the whole world waiting in the wings to slaughter us because we can’t keep our big mouths shut. Democrats are confused by the choices that have been made and want to show that we can play nice and not name call like children. Republicans seem to love it, though. This is their chance to show the world American supremacy.
Democrats got a boost recently by the wise choice Barack Obama made in his veep pick. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, is a man with years of experience in Washington. He serves on two Senate committees: Foreign Relations and the Judiciary Committee.
In foreign relations, Biden has been an advocate of dialogue and use of less heavy-handed tactics around the world. He is experienced in diplomacy with foreign diplomats and ambassadors and has many friends around the world. This is going to be a perfect set up for rock-star Obama to establish relationships. Speaking for Democrats, this makes us very, very happy.
Being on Judiciary Committee, Biden has sat through the trials of Alberto Gonzalez. He had access to information the public did not. We Democrats hope that information can be used to reverse just about everything that has happened in the Department of Justice. One hopes Biden knows which people were placed into a nonpolitical position because of partisanship, and he recommends the firing of all of those people. This would restore the agency’s prestige after these last eight years.
Also, Biden is smart. An attribute the current admininstration lacks. Biden should work with Obama to actually use the intelligence services instead of dismissing their reports.
I’m not sure if I know a number high enough to quantify how happy this makes us Democrats. Our candidates are two of the greatest, as well as most intelligent.
Now as most of us politically savvy people know, John McCain picked a woman, and we wonder why, right? The self-mutilation the Democratic Party inflicted earlier this year is going to have an effect. Many Hillary Clinton supporters won’t back Obama because we decided this was the year that women and blacks have been waiting for. How idiotic to run these two history makers together.
McCain’s veep choice is a Karl Rove-ish attempt at grabbing at the Clinton supporters. Per Yahoo! News, "(Gov. Sarah) Palin is a conservative first-term governor of Alaska with strong anti-abortion views and a record of fiscal conservatism." Thank God! Because McCain and President George W. Bush are far from fiscally conservative, so she will be a good balance. "She is an avid sportswoman who would bring youth and vitality to the ticket. McCain turns 72 on Friday," Yahoo! reported.
This is good because Palin is to McCain as Raul Castro is to Fidel Castro. What are the odds of this guy making eight more years? We know where the smart money is going. We will need someone to replace him.
Also per Yahoo! News also reported that, "Palin, former mayor of the town of Wasilla, built a reputation as a reformer in a state that recently has been hit with corruption scandals." This is perfect as well. Republicans love scandal – it makes them interesting. She will fit right in with Larry Craig, Tom DeLay, Lewis "Scooter" Libby and others. They can go carousing together.
So Republicans have to love the veep. Now McCain, of course, is going to tow the party line. What more could a good Republican want?
See, everyone is happy.
Khan, a political science and history junior, can be reached via [email protected]
Neither party brings anything new – voters can expect usual politics
Blake Gilson
As an avid follower of political events, I have to admit there are times in which I envy the politically apathetic. They are able to live their lives happily enough without the insanity of partisan politics, obsessive political campaigns and the insistent need to define their personal identity with an R or a D. It seems that the world in which everyone is political, ever seeking to sway enough of the screaming masses to allow their rock-star, godlike figure to have a shot at ruling the nation, along with the world, dances too close to the dystopian texts we read in school.
It must feel good to avoid politics. As George Orwell explained, "politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia." But it is becoming harder to avoid this spectacle as the pop-star-like coverage drowns out all other news and politicians work incessantly to extend their reach into our lives. While the average days worked by Americans to pay for the bulging government hovers around 74, the question "Where did all my money go?" is bound to be asked.
If there was ever a need for "none of the above" to appear on the ballot, this year is it. It is too easy to believe that if only we elect the right candidate, our government will be fixed. Every four years, they sit down and talk on and on about how amazing this fantastic "fresh, new candidate" is. "He’ll surely bring change!"
Just two years ago, there was much excitement when the Democrats took back Congress. Jubilation! We’ll finally pull out of Iraq. Have we forgotten President George W. Bush’s year 2000 promise to be fiscally conservative and maintain a humble foreign policy? Just because Barack Obama sounds different doesn’t mean he is. He’s still a politician.
If you want proof, examine Obama’s sell-out on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Bill and backing pre-emptive aggression against Iran. Obama wants a timetable to get out of Iraq, but in no way calls into question the heart of the decades of interventionist foreign policy, which had led us to this current debacle. That we should take some troops out here and move them over there is not the "new politics" this nation needs. Democratic Sen. Joe Biden’s Patriot Act loving isn’t any better either.
This is not to give the impression that John McCain is superior; at least he is more honest about the role of American power in foreign affairs. The accusation, propagated by the media, that McCain’s selection of a woman for vice president was done solely to get Hilary Clinton supporters is startling. Could not a woman be qualified for VP in any other capacity than to attract women voters?
The search for the "perfect candidate" is precisely what dooms us. It’s no coincidence that the rise of mass media, which causes an increasing interest in politics, is correlated with an increase in government, especially executive, power. We begin to believe that our system itself isn’t broken, that it can be fixed, it can be made better – but it can’t. Brilliant people dedicate their entire lives to a cause that is already lost. Maybe some superficial changes will be made, maybe a particularly bad policy will be repealed before an equally bad policy is passed, but the vicious cycle of politics will not be changed.
I don’t hope for a new type of politics – I hope for a new system of action, where we don’t invest our time and energy in getting our man into power, but we live the change we want to be, and that’s not the kind of hope Barack Obama is promising.
Gilson, a business sophomore, can be reached via [email protected]
