Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: With candidates like these, who needs real choice?
By Brendan Guilford
The Almanian (Alma College)
05/31/2006

(U-WIRE) ALMA, Mich. — Presidential election campaigns often bring out the worst in both of the two major parties in our country. Both groups spend months bickering tastelessly in primary campaigns over whom will represent their party in the actual presidential race. The line over what is and is not acceptable seems to become blurrier every four years. I was unimpressed with the amount of time spent among the democratic candidates debating the past actions and decisions of the candidates instead of focus on issues.

I was most shocked however, by the newly initiated re-election tactics of our President. President Bush uses imagery of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack and its aftermath in his television advertisements. The highlights include him lecturing firefighters on their importance to our country (they have already been briefed, Mr. President), and a flag draped coffin containing one of the thousands of victims. I wonder if all the ardent Republican Party supporters who perished on Sept. 11th due to terrorism would still support our President in November amidst the continuing allegations that the White House was negligent in its actions up to and after the terrorist attack.

After the furor over President Bush selling pictures of himself at Ground Zero, one would think that his campaign would refrain from profiting from September 11-related imagery. The fact that the pleas of some families who lost loved ones in the tragedy have requested that the Bush campaign cease use of September 11 imagery has fallen on deaf ears. Mr. Bush not only declined to directly comment on the families' requests, instead he stated that he must continue fighting on their behalf. The next step in Mr. Bush's profiteering from the suffering of thousands logically must be the selling off of pieces of the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Much like pieces of the Berlin Wall today, years from now each and every one of us will be able to say that not only do we own a piece of infamy, but we purchased it from the President of the United States of America!

Alas, the trouble in Washington is not restricted to the offices of the Grand Old Party. The Democratic Party is unwilling (or unable) to put forth a distinct, clear vision of their policy statements. If a Democratic candidate is bold enough to take a concrete stand on an issue, it now seems commonplace to adjust that viewpoint as public opinion polls change. When the Democrats do state a policy position on a topic of debate, it seems to often mirror that of their Republican counterparts closely.

It seems that it is a difficult time to be an independent voter in the United States. I wonder what those voters out there in the electoral abyss are to do come November 2. John Kerry, the Washington Insider, will run against "Big Oil, Big War" Bush the Second in what is sure to be the most boring and frustrating election yet for those who still yearn for political debate more like Lincoln vs. Douglas and less like Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola.

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