Jacie Williams is a junior majoring in communication. She can be contacted at [email protected]. I happened to be one of the lucky people who took my high school American government class during a campaign year. We were always the lucky ones because we spent most of the time in the class discussing the current campaign instead of taking notes and dreading tests.
It was an enlightening time for me, but I was not old enough to vote and didn’t really care what was going on.
I guess I have more of a sense of duty now (or it could just be that you can’t read the news without picking up some information about the candidates and upcoming primaries), but I am much more informed about this campaign than I was about the last one.
I am not too impressed, either. I remember my government teacher saying something along the lines of American political races being one of the most active sports in the nation. I guess he was probably right.
With millions of spectators taking sides and rooting for their team, election years can get downright nasty.
What upsets me about this is that apparently for some of the candidates this year, having their own sport was not enough, but they took their political gallivanting into professional football.
According to a writer for Mary Ann Akers of The Washington Post, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton actually chose opposing sides for the last Super Bowl game.
I have nothing against candidates having real lives outside the political arena, but the team candidates show their support for should not matter in an actual campaign.
I realize that this is football country, and I might offend some people by saying this, but I do not think it is right to choose the next president of one of the world’s most powerful nations by looking at which team he or she rooted for in the Super Bowl.
According to the article, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) even told Obama that if he endorsed the Illinois senator, he would “have to root for the Patriots in the Super Bowl.”
I am not an idiot. I am quite sure he meant it in a joking, fun way, but that does not mean it was an appropriate comment.
There are quotes from both Obama and Clinton’s campaign spokespeople explaining their decisions and even liking them to the candidates.
In Aker’s article, Philippe Reines, Clinton’s spokesman, reportedly said “Facing heavy odds and counted out – but coming back with an upset win?
“After New Hampshire that’s Hillary Clinton and, come Sunday, the New York Giants.”
Reines might have predicted the outcome correctly, but somebody had to be wrong. It could have just as easily been the other way around.
It almost seemed like these people were equating which team won the Super Bowl to which candidate would win the primaries, but Obama certainly did not back out of the race after Clinton’s team won.
Maybe there are people who will vote for Clinton because the Giants won. I think I will let the real issues determine my vote.