Kerry approach unswift

Welcome back to classes everyone. Today is the first day of school, and I'd like to inform you on some things you might've missed while on summer vacation.

First, and most importantly, Craig Krenzel is backing up Rex Grossman (how many undefeated seasons does he have?) in Chicago, and the Buckeyes have a new quarterback in Justin Zwick. OSU is 3-0 in the post-Krenzel era, and I think we'll be just fine.

Second, the Oval is being redone. Now, I know it doesn't look that great now, but just wait for spring quarter. Trust me.

Finally, did you know 2004 is an election year? Man, this just snuck up on me. George W. is running for reelection in "The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime." The Democrats, seeing how important this election is, have put forth their most qualified challenger: John Kerry. No, seriously, John Kerry.

This is also the year that the mythical youth vote will finally help decide the election. Honestly, THIS is the year young people will be voting. Previous elections were just warm ups. In this, "The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime," politicians will be trying to get the young people on their sides. To court the youth vote both Kerry and Bush have been talking about the rising costs of education, the ridiculously low minimum wage and reforming social security because it's going to run out after our parent's generation.

Ha, gotcha, they've really been talking about Vietnam. Well done. To Kerry's credit, I can see why he would think Vietnam would be relevant right now. Iraq is an unpopular war, and so was Vietnam, so Kerry's point is when it was his turn to fight he went and learned the cost of war first hand. He's trying to contrast himself with Bush, who when it was his turn to fight, got himself into the National Guard and might or might not have showed up.

This strategy has a couple problems: First of all, the youth doesn't care who did what in a war that happened before they were born. Second, Kerry put all your eggs in on basket, so once a pro-Bush group attacks the Senator on his service, he gets pushed into a corner. When he finally responds with allegations that Bush used family connections to skip service, the Democrats look dumb. If Bush did use connections to skip going to war, why wasn't this brought up for years ago? It's not like George W. suddenly turned into a rich jerk sometime in the last four years - people have known this for awhile.

If you want young people voting, talk about how high the staggering cost of college is and how Dubya's tax cut only made things worse. Talk about how much Iraq is costing in money and lives and imagine how much better we could be if we had taken that Iraq money and thrown it all into libraries and schools. Talk about Halliburton - young people love independent music and movies and have a general distaste for corporate rock and the like. Talk about Bush and his ties to the oil industry, that could get some blood boiling.

It's kind of funny how neither candidate seems to be talking about how we're running out of troops in the Middle East and how Army recruitment is down. I couldn't imagine why they don't want to talk about that.

Benjamin Cox is a junior in music history. He can be reached for comment at cox.405@osu.edu.