In this fall’s congressional and gubernatorial elections, Maryland voters are going to hold their noses and reluctantly vote Democrat. I say reluctantly because I don’t know anyone who will be voting for the Democratic Party out of genuine interest or excitement about the party or its positions. After all, the primary accomplishments of the Democratic Party in the post-Sept. 11 era seem to be pathological spinelessness in confronting the Bush administration’s lies and usurpation of American freedoms and devotion to Hillary Clinton, easily the most nakedly cynical politician since Richard Nixon. Obviously, these are not political positions that inspire confidence in the average citizen. But despite the Democrats’ many grievous faults, most voters will ultimately, unenthusiastically, settle for them not because of who they are, but because of who they are not – namely, Republicans President George W. Bush or Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Bush has been disastrous for America, and Ehrlich has been disastrous for the university.
It’s easy to catalog President Bush’s mistakes, namely because he has made so many. In the Middle Eastern paradise of Iraq, radical Shia militiamen are abducting innocent Sunni civilians from public hospitals, torturing them and murdering them. Remind me again what our presence in Iraq has to do with Osama bin Laden? Closer to home, the recent one-year remembrance of the devastation Hurricane Katrina wrought merely serves to remind us that Hezbollah will likely rebuild southern Lebanon long before Bush and FEMA rebuild New Orleans. Even the formerly rubber-stamp judicial system has begun to rein in Bush’s unconstitutional encroachments on American freedoms. In fact, it’s hard to think of anything Bush has actually succeeded at in six years. This is a man who told German newspapers that the best moment of his presidency was when he “caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on [his] lake.”
But don’t take my word for the president’s failures; just ask Maryland’s Republican lieutenant governor, Michael Steele. In July, Steele sat down with reporters to share his views about Bush’s record. And what was Steele’s opinion of the war in Iraq? “It didn’t work. – We didn’t prepare for the peace.” What about Hurricane Katrina? “A monumental failure of government.” Did Steele want Bush to campaign for him in Maryland? “To be honest with you, probably not.”
Why hasn’t Steele been this honest with his boss Ehrlich? Ehrlich cut $120 million in state funding for higher education during his first two years in office. As a direct consequence, tuition at the university has gone up 40 percent since his election in 2002. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has given the state of Maryland an “F” grade for college affordability. But when former Student Government Association presidents Tim Daly and Aaron Kraus traveled to Annapolis to discuss ways to compromise on tuition hikes, the Ehrlich administration refused to meet with them. To add insult to injury, Ehrlich vetoed House Bill 1188, which would have limited tuition increases to 5 percent annually. Instead, Ehrlich “magnanimously” submitted a supplementary budget to freeze tuition and provide the missing funding he himself cut. It is obvious that, whatever else his accomplishments as a governor, Ehrlich’s administration has been terrible for Maryland’s college students.
Ehrlich’s budget cuts have accelerated the corporatization of our campus. Today, it’s “Chevy Chase Bank Field at Byrd Stadium.” How much longer until we attend the “University of Maryland, Pepsi-Cola campus, brought to you by Google?” College students are often stereotyped as politically indifferent, but we’re not blind to the effects of four years of Ehrlich. This past Wednesday, the first day of the fall semester, the College Republicans set up a lonely booth outside of Stamp Student Union. Most students they solicited just rolled their eyes and walked past. This fall those same students, and other citizens across Maryland, will remember the contempt George Bush and Robert Ehrlich have shown them and vote for whoever the other guy is.
Cyrus Hadadi is a senior electrical engineering, mathematics and history major. He can be reached at chadadi@yahoo.com.
