Vote for my Daddy, He's Rich!

THE RIGHT ANGLE: Vote for My Daddy, He's Rich! - Opinions

Last week, Cate Edwards, John Edwards' daughter visited UNCG to talk about her father's campaign. Now, if you're like me, you probably saw fliers around campus announcing her arrival and thought, "Who is Cate Edwards?" And then you kept reading the flier, which eventually answered your question: Nobody.

When it comes down to it, Cate Edwards is little more than a spoiled little rich girl living off Daddy's money. Why was she going around answering questions about her father's campaign? Another good question! NO ONE KNOWS! My father is an accountant, but I don't travel around lecturing people on how to correctly do their tax returns.

After attending her speech, I found myself rather disappointed that I had missed my political science class for such fluff. Online columns that I looked up later lamented the fact that Cate was only invited to three North Carolina Universities, but the truth is, maybe they wanted to give their time and money to something better. Something that's maybe, I don't know, interesting and/or educational? Maybe something that would fill the entire auditorium? Don't let the TV clips fool you: they were frantically jamming kids in front of the news cameras so Cate and the College Democrats wouldn't look bad.

Ben Byrd, the president of the College Democrats, introduced Cate, touting her many "accomplishments" such as graduating from Princeton and being involved in her sorority, Pi Beta Phi. After listening to her speech, I lost all respect for a Princeton degree. I hope that everyone who scoffs at Bush's Yale degree was in our EUC listening to Princeton's finest last Monday, because it was quite painful listening to her stumble over big words like "convention."

Cate spoke to us about why we should vote for the Kerry/Edwards ticket in 2004, but in her attacks against Bush, she left out some interesting facts. She told us about how many people had lost their jobs during the past four years, but failed to mention that our current president inherited this economy from President Clinton, the Democrat's golden boy. You'd think that someone with a degree in Political Economics would know this and would also know that, thanks to the Bush administration, the economy has been rising in more recent times. I'm disappointed that she forgot to tell us this. She also mentioned that health care premiums had risen, but failed to remind us that, as a trial lawyer, her father had a HUGE hand in causing those premiums to rise. I wonder if "hypocrite" has any meaning to her.

My favorite part was the question/answer session. The first two people to stand up didn't seem to understand the meaning of the word "question" and instead preached at the crowd. The first woman ranted about Bush trying to reinstate the draft but neglected to inform the audience that the draft legislation making its way through Congress had been proposed by two Democratic senators, both of whom are staunch Kerry supporters. The second "question" was a rant about health care premiums going up, and I was once again disappointed in Cate for not setting the man straight.

But then the real questions began, and Cate got a chance to let her intelligence really shine. One person asked if she was discouraged by Bush's lead in the polls, and she stated her distrust in polls, which is understandable. She talked about how Bush had gotten a nice lead due to his convention, but some of the more recent polls she had seen had put Kerry in the lead. I spent an hour looking up different polls later that day, and not a one of them showed Kerry in the lead. Looks like Daddy's money can't buy everything.

Another person asked what she thought her father's most popular speaking point was, and after hmming and uhhing for a minute, she replied, "I don't have all of my father's talking points memorized." Are you kidding me? Okay, you're traveling around to different universities trying to rally votes for the Democratic ticket, and you don't even know your father's platform? Could you not just SAY something??

Cate, please do the world a favor and end your political career here and now. You're obviously not able to think on the spot. Every time you were asked a question, you'd pause and cock your head to the side. I mean, that's adorable when my puppy does it, but scary when someone I'm supposed to be taking political advice from does it. Let's face the facts: Daddy's money might buy you some nice things, including that pretty little Princeton degree, but it's obvious from your "speech" that money can't buy miracles. Next time, if he's that hard up for votes, let Daddy do his own campaigning. You can sit behind him and smile; that's really what you do best.