Purdue University is currently running a Vote Early campaign to encourage their students to get out and vote this election cycle. A great idea if you ask me. The student political organizations are campaigning hard for their chosen candidates, of course, and sidewalk chalk graffiti is in abundance.
Here’s the thing I’ve noticed – nowhere I’m the past week have I seen an actual ad touting the virtues (or vices) of John McCain. No, what I’ve seen to the exclusion of everything else are ads either for or against Barack Obama. The pro voices are the loudest, of course, and are frequently seen to calling for change with your vote.
I suspect that it’s the demographic at Purdue that makes Obama such a hot an exciting topic here on this campus, and after all, why not? Obama is young, charismatic, and energetic, where McCain is the exact opposite. As such Obama is going to appeal to a great many young people.
Even so there are plenty of Obama hatred out there in the student body. But rather than campaign to McCain’s virtues to counter Obama’s own, the arguments scream out – falsely – about Obama’s rumored terrorist connections, calling him a terrorist’s friend and pointing out that at least one terrorist organization that I’m aware of views Obama favorably as the next American president. Frankly, these so-called arguments make me angry simply because they are designed to generate fear reactions, not to mention bring patently false. They’re designed to play on ignorance to create votes, and d such they disgust me as being low, cheap, and underhanded methods of undermining what _should_ be an intelligent election process – but then again, when was politics ever about fairness and truth?
Almost makes me want to vote for Obama just for spite.
