It’s election season again and that’s the bad news. Why is it bad news? How come I’m not celebrating the time of year when we get to act on our cherished beliefs of liberty and hope, of independence and change, of justice and free speech?
You would think this changing of the guard would be heralded with mirth, that I would be grateful to live in a country that can change its stripes mid-step and correct the erroneous path it had embarked upon.
Well…
The fact is: I am proud to be an American. I am. I am chauvinistic in my love for this country and that is why election season is depressing. It’s as if America and I are breaking up over and over and, honestly, it sucks.
Please don’t misunderstand me; I don’t want my country, back. I’m not so lost in my own zealotry for a better America that I think this country has gone anywhere we haven’t led it. But I do want it to be a better America.
Students of Ohio State, ask yourselves if you are happy with the way things are. Ask yourselves if you feel well-represented. I don’t, and our candidates are abysmal.
We have a gubernatorial race that will decide the fate for many graduating in the next four years. Yet Gov. Ted Strickland and challenger John Kasich so far have declined invitations to meet with Lantern staff. It would be swell if they could take time away from throwing jabs at each other to learn what students — one of the largest voting blocks in the state — think about the issues.
I want a candidate I can put my hopes in. I am tired of having to choose between Tweedle Dee and someone I wouldn’t trust to inhale and exhale. I am tired of having our archetypal candidates be clean-cut scholars who we find out are nymphomaniac pirates or “average Joe’s” whose interpretations of the Constitution are an affront to elementary reading comprehension.
Is there no candidate who comes from a broken home, who was an intelligent but average student, and who has a misdemeanor he or she is deeply remorseful about? A candidate who has some embarrassing party pictures on MySpace — yeah, MySpace. Give me candidates who have seen the error of their ways and want to make a difference via experience.
I want a candidate who asks, “Why is it Wall Street versus Main Street?” I don’t live or work on either of those streets. Most of us coming out of college will work on King Avenue or High Street while living on Chittenden — if we’re lucky enough to get a job.
The good news is that we have a university teeming with possibility. Change comes slowly, so we might be waiting on one of our freshmen to make the difference, but the change must come. I know there is one of you out there who has the mustard seed of potential and the fertile soil of desire to lead the change. Plant that seed, water it with the support of your peers, and grow to be the change that we so desperately need.
