'Right Angle' column is the wrong angle

Rob Heise
Junior in marketing

First of all, the election 14 months from now is not where this battle begins, as Brian Smith said in his column. It is in the primary elections, beginning Jan. 13 in Washington, D.C., and ending in Montana and New Jersey June 8. Voters will decide which Democratic hopeful will have the opportunity to challenge President Bobo to a fight of political strategerism, as our president might so lucidly describe it, so everyone should vote.

As far as his comparisons to past elections, there are other factors involved. If Bobby Kennedy wasn't assassinated in 1968, "Tricky Dick" would never have been elected to the presidency, and McGovern would not have been running in ≠72. President Carter was the victim of the horrendous economic policies of "Mr.-I-am-not-a-crook," and the further weakening that followed the scandal that was created by Nixon's Watergate fiasco.

Walter Mondale did not receive more support for two key reasons: first, it is REALLY difficult to defeat a sitting president, especially one who was as adept at campaigning as Reagan. Secondly, this country would not accept the nomination of a woman (Geraldine Ferraro) as the vice president. Unfortunately, despite the fact that there are a number of women who are qualified on both sides of the aisle, this lesson was learned so well that neither party has even attempted to nominate another woman to either of the two top spots in nearly twenty years. Republicans like to flaunt the '84 election as one of its greatest victories and use it to justify the "greatness" of Ronald Reagan's presidency, but the fact is that this was more a case of America failing to offer women the same respect that it offered men than it was a great Republican victory.

And don't get me started on the fact that President Clinton never received a majority of the popular vote, especially when President Bobo didn't even get a plurality of the popular vote in 2000; he lost the 2000 election by about 500,000 votes!! In 1992, President Clinton had to deal with a viable third-party candidate in Ross Perot. Perot's garnering of 19 percent of the popular vote in 1992, guaranteed, by law, a third party a spot on the 1996 ballot, thus ensuring that no candidate would receive a majority. This was a good thing, though, since this situation encouraged more debate.

As far as Gov. Dean being fiscally conservative, well, he is! As governor of Vermont, Howard Dean balanced the state's budget and avoided participating in deficit spending. I know this seems like a radical idea, considering President Bush's commitment to spending better than $500 billion (that's right, ladies & gentlemen, 11 zeroes!) more than the U.S. government receives in revenues, but it is, in fact, very conservative.

Gov. Dean, who is also an MD, decided that it would be a prudent idea to provide basic health care to those who can't necessarily pay for it themselves: CHILDREN. In Vermont, 96 percent of children are eligible to receive state-sponsored health care, as a result of Gov. Dean's universal healthcare package. Considering that big insurance companies incur administrative fees (for example, paper clips, eight-figure CEO salaries, copy machine repair, paychecks for that duck that does commercials, etc.) in excess of seven times of what it costs Medicare to do the same job, is there anybody out there, despite the potential loss in revenues to the insurance industry, who would say that providing healthcare to children is a bad thing?

I don't even know how to address the Republican policy of homophobia, except to say sometimes you have to be willing to say that the time for new ideas has come, which is what Gov. Dean did. He said it isn't wrong for one person to love another person, and it isn't wrong for those two to decide to make a lifelong commitment to each other. And it isn't wrong for the state to recognize that commitment. Even though you say homosexuality is not a family value, would you agree that love is?

Gov. Dean is not the only one who thought that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was not a good idea. I agree. President Carter agrees. Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, a retired, four-star general in the U.S. Army, agrees. Hell, President Bobo apparently agrees that defiance of the United Nations was not a good idea, hence the recent back-peddling that this administration has been doing with this issue.

Yes, the world is a better place, now that Saddam Hussein has no power to commit atrocities, and the United States was probably in the best position to lead a lawful liberation effort. But in the light of soaring costs to us, growing international mistrust of us and a lack of a plan to rebuild the country following the war, it is clear that we should not have led "the coalition of the willing," but rather should have led a U.N. Coalition, as we did in 1991.

With respect to the 2004 election, I can simply say this-or maybe I'll quote President Bobo: "Bring it on!" 'Cause we're right, and we can prove it!

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