A Tale of Two Men

The Right Angle : A Tale of Two Men - Opinions

All too often, people are elected based on what party they represent. I know people who vote Democrat simply because their parents did so. Whatever happened to voting on the issues, or voting on the person? Why is it Republicans are convinced Democrats are going to ruin the country, and liberals are convinced conservatives want to destroy the environment?

Today I'm going to force you to make a decision. I'm going to give you two candidates and ask you to chose which one you think would make a better leader. We're not going to go by names or parties, just issues and past experience.

Let's begin with Candidate A. Candidate A was born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He attended a local university and began a career working for a local company. Candidate A worked hard for 17 years at the local company, with no dreams of political grandeur. He entered politics in 1994 when he realized that rising taxes were crushing North Carolina's businesses. His concern for the welfare of North Carolina families won him a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, and he spent the next few years fighting for fiscal responsibility and affordable healthcare for North Carolinians. Worried that he was not serving his home state as well as he could be, Candidate A decided to run for U.S. Senate in 2004.

Candidate B, the son of a wealthy politician, was born and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He attended a business school in New York, and after graduation, he worked at a financial firm in New York City. He did not return to North Carolina until his father ran for governor of the state in 1972. With the exception of working on his father's campaign, Candidate B had basically no political experience until 1992 when he became involved in a fundraiser for that year's presidential campaign. As a reward for his loyalty, Candidate B was appointed to head of the Small Business Administration in 1993, deputy Chief of Staff from 1994-1995, and Chief of Staff in 1996. In 1998, the administration he was serving under found itself in a compromisingly sticky situation, and Candidate B suddenly missed his home state of North Carolina and could not wait to leave Washington. However, he must have started missing D.C., because in 2002, he ran for U.S. Senate. His campaign failed, and he is once again running for U.S. Senate in 2004.

I had the privilege of attending a senatorial debate between Candidate A and B a few weeks ago. Halfway through the event, it was blindingly apparent who the real North Carolinian was. Candidate A showed genuine concern for his constituents as he discussed repealing unnecessary taxes, attracting jobs to the state, lowering health care premiums, and improving education. Candidate B sounded like a tape-recording every time he opened his mouth, except for the few times he tried unsuccessfully to make a joke. Although the jokes were few and far between, they were all painful, as Candidate B apparently found himself much more amusing than anyone else did. The only issue Candidate B could stick to was that, when elected, he would work with both parties in the Senate. He never said what they would work on, but he repeated that same phrase several times. I found this amusing since he lost the 2002 senatorial race because of his lack of bipartisanship.

As a North Carolinian, do you see the predicament I am faced with? Candidate A is a hard-working family man with our state's best interests in mind, while Candidate B is simply trying to gain political power. For me, the choice is a no-brainer: Richard Burr (aka "Candidate A") knows this state, and he knows what we need. I was lucky enough to meet him on two occasions: once when I was 13, and again a few weeks ago at the senatorial debate. He is a genuinely nice person, approachable and very easy to talk to. Meeting him at the age of 13 definitely helped inspire me to go into politics.

On the other hand, I find Candidate B (Erskine Bowles) to be just a little scary. I have a theory that he is robot designed by the Democratic Party. If you think Bowles cares about North Carolina, you're sadly mistaken. It's not a coincidence that he chose to leave the Clinton administration during the middle of the Lewinsky scandal; he didn't want to ruin his future political goals. And if he had really wanted to leave D.C. so badly, why is he suddenly trying to go back? Bowles is no different from John Edwards; he only wants to use this Senate seat as a stepping-stone. He has much higher aspirations.

Take it from me: I've heard the issues; I've met the men. This goes far beyond party loyalty. A vote for Richard Burr is a vote for North Carolina's future. Trust me, North Carolina: when November 2 rolls around, elect Richard Burr to U.S. Senate. You won't regret it.

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.