The Justice

by Lisa Frank

One of the most important rules of politics is that a candidate can never say the names of his opponents when he speaks, and it is a rule made primarily because of college students. Political strategists preach that college students very rarely know the name of more than one or two candidates running for a given position, let alone their stances on the issues. Politicians therefore avoid ever mentioning the names of their opponents for fear of causing interested students to go researching on their own and shifting their political allegiance.

Politicians might gamble that the average college student does not know enough about the race to do anything but hand out stickers, but learning more about each candidate for the presidency can go a long way in making students politically literate. The first things to learn are pretty basic.

First, politics runs on polling. You might think that knowing how well John McCain polled this week when the election is months off means nothing-but then you would be wrong. How well a candidate polls this week determines how much press coverage a candidate gets and how willing his supporters are to give him money. (You wouldn't want to waste money on someone who was going to lose, right?) Paying attention to ongoing opinion polls can give you insight into the likelihood of a candidate getting elected.

Secondly, the best part of politics is watching candidates make mistakes that get them into trouble. For example, John McCain singing "ba-ba-ba, bomb-bomb Iran" to the tune of the classic Beach Boys song "Barbara Ann" when asked a question about the national security threat posed by Iranian nuclear aspirations. Or in a more recent example, Bill Richardson last Monday accidentally greeted the Service Employees International Union by saying "Thank you AFSCME!" referring to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest labor rival of the SEIU. Ouch.

It is also important to know that there are many people in politics who are paid six or more figures just to say bad things about people. Case in point: Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said, "Barack Obama's lead in the polls is good for al-Qaida." Conservative talk show host Michael Savage recently said, "Madeleine Albright should be tried for treason, and when she is found guilty, she should be hung." Keep in mind that these people aren't "giving" their opinions-they are selling them.

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