Head pounding like Mike Tyson’s left jab. Cotton mouth Eli Whitney would be proud of. A nausea no amount of Pepto Bismol could ever hope to cure.Alice Cooper once sang, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare.’ Well, welcome to my hangover.The thing is, it’s not one of my usual ‘too much Pabst Blue Ribbon’ hangovers, but a fate far worse.It’s my annual post-election hangover. This year, I imbibed a little bit too much on Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, Bob Dole and Tom Brokaw. Instead of little pink elephants dancing around, I see nothing but Dan Rather’s circling me. Scary stuff.This year’s feelings of nausea have only been compounded by some of the shenanigans pulled by both of our paramilitary pseudo-political factions on campus, the College Republicans and the College Democrats.I never thought I would ever find both of these groups at the business end of my poisen pen at the same time, but somehow they managed to pull it off, at the same time reconfirming my beliefs that everyone is truly evil.See, I was feeling pretty good about this year’s election. I was even considering voting for a change, which is a pretty monumental occurence for a guy like me. Then I took a walk across the Oval.As I was merrily traipsing down our beloved swatch of grass, I was taken aback by the chalk scrawlings of both of these groups.’BILL CLINTON IS A LIAR!’ exclaimed one of these slogans. ‘MICHIGAN LOVES CLINTON!’ another screamed out at me.Clearly a lot of higher-level thought processing went into these. The College Democrats were just as bad.’BOB DOLE IS OLD!’ and ‘VOTE DOLE FOR KANSAS CITIZEN!’Lots of gray matter filling the craniums of these folks.Now, I’ve got to wonder, how many people who are walking across campus are going to see these testaments to the political process and think, ‘Hey, wait a minute! Bob Dole IS old! I hadn’t thought of that! Zoikes! I better not vote for him!’My guess is not many college students are going to see a chalk drawing and think, ‘Hey! They called him ‘Slick Willie!’ Jeepers creepers! I had better vote for Dole!’I’m sorry, but all these two groups are doing is making voters sick with their reindeer games. This is the kind of political mudslinging crap that has sickened voters and led to dismal turnouts at the polls in the first place.You want to write all over my Oval? Why not put something about a 15-percent tax cut? Why not put something about direct student loans? My guess is that anyone who has not already made up their minds would rather read about these things than have our college political groups show their pettiness and general ignorance. I know I’d much rather read about real topics than read about who the hell Evan Oakley plans on casting his ballot for.Instead of lucid arguments and well-thought out discussion, we get force-fed trivial insults and childish barbs. Thanks guys.Far be it from me to cast dispersions, but quite a few USG members seem to be at the heart of all this chicanery. Gee, and I wonder why they can never get anything done in their own little governemnt. Is all of this chalk grafitti a harbinger for their own elections this spring? Probably.You know, I think it is sort of symbolic that these two groups chose colored chalk on the sidewalk as their medium. I personally stopped playing with that stuff when I was about four. Maybe its time for them to put away their chalk and grow up.
David Fong is a graduating (he hopes) senior from Troy (top dogs in the state, football fans), Ohio majoring in journalism. He just managed to tick off just about everyone on campus. Kudos!
