Off The Record

By Nick Kurtz

ngkurtz@csbsju.edu

I still have my “I voted” sticker on. I woke up early to vote for my candidate at the end of an “epic campaign during one of the most tumultuous times in American history,” so says The New York Times. And while I realized just how historic this election was, a part of me felt relief that it was simply over. Or is it?

I have never been too interested in politics – mostly because this was the first election I could vote in, but the other reason was how negative, blaming and mean-spirited political commercials could be. Even if my candidate’s commercial is on TV, rather than strengthening my decision, these commercials make me inclined to vote for no one at all.

Whether Democrat or Republican, John McCain or Barack Obama, all candidates try to gain last-minute votes by ripping down their opponents and engaging in name calling previously confined to third-grade recess. Multi-million dollar commercials on national TV should not be reduced to messages that basically say, “Can you believe he did this?” or, in essence, “He smells funny.”

So when I dropped my ballot in the box this morning, I hoped all the squabbling would disappear. I was wrong.

I completely forgot about an even more bloodthirsty commercial battle that has no foreseeable end in sight – the Mac vs. PC war. Commercials like “Hi, I’m a Mac” or, “I’m a PC” have only escalated, and what began as a friendly competition has turned into the battle I thought ended on Nov. 4.

Just as you are either a supporter of John McCain or Barack Obama – sorry to Ralph Nader and Mickey Mouse – nearly all of us support Mac or PC – sorry to OSS.

Regardless of where you stand, do commercials that tell of dirty secrets and immoral voting or poor usability and system glitches really strengthen opinions? These commercials spend 100 percent of their time talking about what the other party or company does wrong. How are we to know what is right?

So this was the “epic campaign” the New Yorker prophesized. No matter where your beliefs lie along the political spectrum or whether you run Vista or OS X, we are living in defining times. Make sure that definition is defining you, not someone else.

This is the opinion of Nick Kurtz, an SJU sophomore.

By Kelsey Gustafson

I received an e-mail from Brian Cihacek last night in response to my previous post, “Cihacek’s ‘04 Senate Controversy.”  He sent me a brief statement commenting on the 2/24/05 Record article I posted a link to, and also told me about a letter to the editor written the following week. I’ll be posting both those here, and I encourage anyone who read the 2/24/05 article to read these as well.

Here is Cihacek’s statement:

The cult of the political pundit argues that the American population loses interest if answers are too long or too fraught with nuance or too intellectual. These pundits push for a ten word answer which is oversimplified to speak to the largest audience in order to influence the voter to their position. The unfortunate fact is the life and how we live can never be put into a ten word answer and trying to create a situation in ten words is both disrespectful and degrading. Read the rest of this entry »