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November 16, 2004
*Letter to the Editor* One unsurprising endorsement, one surprising lack of support
In the Nov. 2 issue of the Oracle, the editorial board made the colossally unsurprising move of endorsing
John Kerry for president. I credit the brave newspapermen for risking their unsullied reputations of objectivity by boldly lending their weight to the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts. In so doing, these trenchant troubadours of truth effectively put a stop to the eleventh-hour endorsement of George W. Bush and the USA PATRIOT Act the Hamline faculty and student body were preparing to announce.
Now far be it from me to tell the esteemed editors of this venerable publication how to do their jobs, but I feel as though they don’t entirely grasp the concept of what constitutes an endorsement. It’s generally well-agreed that to endorse someone politically is to show an explicit approval of either their candidacy, their policies, or both. It might also be beneficial to clearly state the name of the candidate being endorsed at some point in the body of the work. One would be hard-pressed to consider any written work which failed to meet these basic criteria an endorsement.
With that said, all of you, dig up that issue of the Oracle or go to the Web and read the editorial there.
Count the number of occasions on which John Kerry’s name is stated. How many did you find? Well, with the exception of the title “The Oracle Endorses Kerry,” his name appears approximately zero times. Five hundred fifty-nine words and no John, Kerry, Edwards, or even Democrat. Yes, in this cogent case supporting Kerry’s quest for the presidency, the editorial board completely neglected to mention or even allude to the candidate himself. This isn’t terribly surprising, since Kerry was hardly worthy of mention, but the editorial board’s endorsement would have been more appropriately titled “Vitriolic Spew Against the President č Vote Against Him or Be Consumed with Guilt.”
I’ll freely admit that Bush sucks, and that vein of thought could have certainly made up the bulk of any endorsement of Kerry.
But č and this is symptomatic of the approach taken by many Democrats in this election cycle and, in my opinion, what ultimately led to Kerry’s Tuesday-night defeat č it’s impossible to make a case for someone strictly by putting the hate on someone else.
At some point, one must explicitly state why their candidate presents a substantively better option for the political community. Or, in the case of the Oracle, at least mention the candidate’s name.
Chris Swanson
CLA Student
Posted by msveum at November 16, 2004 11:24 AM
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