Spears and arrows

I just don’t think that there are any good political candidates anymore.

Since I became eligible to vote, I have naturally become more aware of the political candidates and their characters, and I have been disappointed every time. Of course the most obvious example of this is the last presidential election, Americans were asked to choose between George W. Bush or Al Gore, an idiot or a jerk.

If any of you read my column, you already know that I chose the conniving Al Gore over the seemingly dumb George W. Bush. And I will be the first one to admit that yes I was pleasantly surprised at the way George W. Bush has managed to run our country; however, that doesn’t take away from my point, there are no real political candidates truly deserving of their positions. I feel like voters are forced to chose between the lesser of two evils.

Another good example of this would be the recent gubernatorial elections. To chose between current Governor Roy Barnes and Sonny Perdue was like asking, “Do you want bad or worse?” I had issues with both candidates and didn’t like either one of them.

Governor Barnes has made a lot of enemies on his school reform rampages. I know several good teachers who feel like their hard work went unnoticed because Gov. Barnes only seems to see the inadequacies in the Georgia school system and none of the good. Barnes’ Georgia Education Reform Study commission’s top goals were to create public school accountability, ensure teacher quality in order to help students achieve at high levels and define the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the education process. Governor Barnes trampled the good teachers on his way to weed out the bad ones. He blamed the teachers for the majority of what is wrong in the Georgia school system.

He also made school more difficult for primary and elementary school students. He placed a huge importance on early education and the amount of information taught to younger students. As a result, first and second grade children were forced to complete more than of two hours of homework an evening.

Sonny Perdue lost my vote early on in the gubernatorial race. He lost my vote in the spring when he came out with the “King Roy” rat videos. These political videos showed a rat wearing a crown and a necklace identifying it as “King Roy.” The rat is shown stalking around downtown Atlanta and climbing the capital building. This showed Perdue’s complete lack of character and tact. For him to resort to such childish publicity antics made me think that he really had nothing to offer the governorship. If it was his idea, then he is an idiot. If it was his campaign committee’s idea, then he is an idiot for listening to them. I just cannot endorse a candidate who acts like a ten-year-old and resorts to name calling.

Granted, each candidate had a few good qualities and campaign platforms, but as a whole, I felt like they had nothing to offer. As a voter, I am forced to take the good with the bad, to choose the one that will do the least amount of damage during their time in office.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 15 2002. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry