Hillary Clinton

Republicans and Democrats agree that the George W. Bush administration has hurt Americans more than it has helped.

Who will best help us? What is the answer to this cowboy diplomacy and negligence of civil rights and domestic issues?

To analyze who will best manufacture change, we must look at the record of the candidates.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has written bipartisan legislature to prevent child pregnancy, made adoption easier and aided numerous countries in improving women’s rights. She sits in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where she has written legislation to track the health status of our troops so conditions like Gulf War Syndrome would no longer be misdiagnosed.

She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves and has been a strong critic of the Administration’s handling of Iraq.

Record is key to understanding a candidate’s integrity and work ethic, and Clinton has been an agent of change during her whole career.

Currently, there are more than 47 million Americans without health care and more than 100,000 troops serving in Iraq. Clinton has the solutions and experience to solve these problems.

Clinton has a plan to provide health care to all Americans, and this plan is not governmentally-owned. Her plan will provide government subsidies to people who cannot afford health care while not damaging the quality of health care for people who can pay for it.

In Iraq, she will start withdrawing our friends, brothers and sisters. However, she knows we must continue to reconstruct Iraq and stabilize it during this time.

Lastly, Clinton will restore our integrity abroad and reestablish our connections lost during this Administration.

Something must be done now about the economy to stop this recession, and Clinton already has a policy to tackle it.

She will provide jobs for millions of Americans in “green collar jobs,” which will help combat global warming, make us independent from foreign oil and create more diversity in energy. She also will provide tax breaks to the low and middle classes.

When we graduate from college, we will be confronted with big issues.

Some of us will worry about being injured because we cannot pay for health care. Some of us will agonize over heating bills because we will not have jobs. Some of us will not be able to pay our student loans. Some of us will worry about global warming and what consequences we will have. Some of us will be shipped off to Iraq.

My brother was just accepted into the Navy, and I don’t want to see him hurt overseas, especially when we all have the opportunity to vote for someone who could ensure his safety. On Feb. 5, please vote for a person who has the record, knowledge and experience to manage our problems: Hillary Clinton.

- Jake Campbell is a sophomore from Alpharetta majoring in political science, public relations and French.

Barack Obama

I can debate the issues with the best of them but truth be told, you don’t really care. But my question is, why should you vote for Sen. Barack Obama? My answer is, why not vote for someone who is actually capable of inspiring a nation to believe in its leadership?

When I see the list of topics discussed, I am overwhelmed. I am blessed to have health insurance.

While I couldn’t care less about people crossing our Southern border and coming to America, I am a little paranoid of terrorists crossing our border.

I am uninformed enough to think the government actually pays me money in the form of a tax refund once a year.

The point is, if it’s health care, national security, taxes or foreign relations – the issues addressed by the candidates have no direct impact on my life.

Statements like this are sure to draw the ire of the politically-minded, but the fact remains that this is the way I feel – a sentiment shared by many.

Most of us who vote do so on the merit of ideological principles. We concoct our views of how we think the world should be, and we stick to them because they are what are “right” (or left.).

We all know that the concerns they play games with up in Washington affect some people directly. And as it is those people combined with people such as ourselves make up this nation, it is left to us to decide which issues we will tackle and how we will do it.

Yet therein lies another problem. Those who are directly affected end up having to wait too long just to see whatever they care about addressed.

And when that problem is dealt with, it gets lost in a Congressional committee because Charlie Wilson is busy playing G.I. Joe with human lives.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr. and everyone who was part of Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation are a sample to reflect what is great about this nation.

They all inspire us to be idealistic and believe in greatness as opposed to apathy and pragmatism.

That is not to say that Obama is equivalent to any of these great Americans. But he is the only presidential candidate telling you that no matter your political ideology, there is something he stands for that you can support.

Why not believe that, for once, we can come together and figure out a way to give health care to those who can’t afford it instead of fighting over gay marriage?

Why not figure out a way to decrease taxes and wasteful government spending instead of arguing over whether or not a certain Senator was trying to get a quick booty-call at the airport?

The only way we can move forward and make changes is by having a figurehead behind whom we all can rally and work with.

And don’t talk to me about experience because experience has helped in large part to create this environment that needs to be changed.

- Jaiah Scott is a junior from Marietta majoring in economics.