Where Have All The Politicians Gone?By Jeffrey Woodard
Election Night, 2004. For half of American, tonight was a night of celebration. All of their hard work had paid off. Carl Rove’s political brilliance shined through as, through an almost last minute slide, Bush won the office for another term of President of the United States. For the other half of America, that night was a night of defeat. I personally felt sick to my stomach, afraid for the environment, afraid for the future of our educational system, afraid that the civil rights that we’ve worked so hard for, would vanish. I felt sick for over a week. My fellow democrats couldn’t stomach the fact that Bush actually got the majority vote this time around. A man who sends us, if I may quote him directly, “Mexed missages”, was voted president of the United States. The Republicans wore their George W. Bush signs with pride, gloating as I’m sure we Democrats would have done if Kerry had won. One man in particular would run at people who he knew were Democrats, and yell out “George W!”. I, in return, would smile and yell “CLINTON! 2008!” And watch his smiling face turn into one filled with anger. That was the one bit of hope we had… It’s 2005 now, and I had decided, since I haven’t seen any political club flyers on campus lately of any kind, to do a web search of the political clubs on campus. A simple YAHOO.com groups search brings up the Democrat’s page, a group that contains 17 members, and the Republican’s site, http://www.faucollegerepublicans.org, contain no new news whatsoever of the clubs and what they are doing. I never see their tables set up in the Breezeway, or hear anything of either clubs. My email box was once full of messages from political organizations, but now, alas, is empty. Now since the election is over, do politics not exist anymore? Is there nothing to debate about now even though on the Senate Floor the Democrats and Republicans are clashing constantly? FAU, I have one simple question: “Where have all the politicians gone?”