Refuse to choose on Tuesday
Campus Times
November 1, 1996
by Raechel Fittante
Managing Editor
After months of tedious dirty campaigning and constant coverage in newspapers,
magazines and scandalous television commercials, that time is here at last.
Politically-conscious Americans will go to the polls once more and vote
for one of those men whose faces have been plastered all over the country
in every aspect imaginable.
This election year has been pretty disappointing so far. Actually, monumentally
so and spiritually disheartening, and it is safe to say that it will not
get any better.
For many of us here at the University of La Verne, Nov. 5 will be the first
election in which we will be able to vote for a president. Don't get me
wrong, I am excited about this event even now in the final stages of the
game where it is also safe to say that President Bill Clinton will be re-elected
to another four years of broken promises. However, I am not convinced that,
among all of the able and willing political figures within the political
parties of the country, the only real choices the American people have for
president are none other than the dashing aforementioned would-inhale-if-he-could-again
President Clinton or the distinguished, yet feeble Bob Dole.
Not that these are unacceptable choices, but the point is that merely acceptable
choices are all they are. Neither will probably be a great president for
the next four years-adequate, perhaps, but not great.
The fact is that most of us are going to stick to our respective political
parties when voting and hope for the best. But what if there was more we
could do than that? Would it not be better to take a stand as American voters
who can get the message across that we are not going to stand for lame presidents,
faulty promises or poor choices anymore?
Now, I do not mean refusing to vote in the upcoming election. That will
not mean anything to the government, except that we are a bunch of apathetic
and unconcerned citizens. Instead we should refuse to choose.
I got this notion from a friend of mine after I asked him who he was planning
on voting for. He surprised me when he said in frank seriousness, "Ross
Perot."
"Ross Perot!" I exclaimed in disbelief. "You'll be wasting
your vote on someone you know will not win."
He said, "I'm not wasting my vote on someone who will not win, but
refusing to choose one of the two that will."
Almost immediately I realized the stroke of genius that goes with this idea.
To choose between Clinton or Dole because they are the only men up for grabs
who come close to winning, even if you do not particularly like either one
of them, is settling for what the government has dished out for us. It is
complying with the government's plans for the immediate future which are
to put who it wants in the presidency, by not giving the citizens a wide
enough selection.
As we all know, Clinton has a large enough following to be re-elected, and
many of those who are going to vote for Dole will do it just to take votes
from Clinton and the Democrats and give them to the Republicans. I do not
know of many people out there who believe Dole actually has a chance of
winning.
Voting for Ralph Nadar of the Green Party or Ross Perot will take votes
away from both and give the parties the message that we are sick of their
tired candidates; we are not choosing anymore, but we still care enough
to vote. If enough people do this, maybe there will be more inspirational
candidates in 2000 besides good old Al Gore.
Will I end up voting for Ross Perot, who has the slogan, "Vote for
me because you own this country?" Probably not, but even though we
may not really own this country anymore, it is nice to remember that we
are supposed to.
Raechel Fittante, a junior journalism major, is managing editor of the
Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at fittante@ulvacs.ulaverne.edu.