The first op-ed is in; this piece comes from a Ph.D. student in the midst of writing up their dissertation somewhere over on the left-hand side of the United States. I’ve made no edits, but did title the piece.

Instead of adding my voice to the many opinions on “which candidate is better?” I’d like to challenge two views that I’ve heard a lot. Each of these views is, to me, a dangerous misunderstanding of the system. The U.S. will be a better nation if less people believe them.

A friend of mine complained that he didn’t like Bush, but felt that Kerry didn’t represent him. Another said that Kerry was clearly more competent, but Bush was more of an everyman. A third doesn’t vote because she never identifies with any of the candidates. The common theme is that we want and expect to be “represented” by our president. “Is he like me?” we ask. Folks, this is unrealistic. The country is split 50-50 on abortion, which means that the president will only agree with 50% of us on abortion. We’re also split 50-50 on taxation, so he’ll only agree with 25% of us on abortion + taxation. You see where this is going — if there are 5 major issues that split the country, the President can only represent about 3% of the country on the issues! Guys, your congressperson is a representative. Try to vote for somebody like you — or better yet, try to overturn the geographic-representation and winner-take-all aspects of our system so that we can have real representation. But please don’t expect the President to represent you. He’s an executive, not a representative. Vote for the guy that you see as the best Chief Executive.

People have been saying to me, “Bush and Kerry are just the same, and I don’t agree with them. Why should I vote for one of them?” This has a strong kernel of truth in it, because not only Bush and Kerry, but nearly all Western leaders, are clumped together on the political scale. My beliefs are much closer to a third-party candidate, so I’m peeved that only Bush and Kerry have a chance to win. However, I’m going to vote for one of them anyway, because I’ve decided that it’s more important to influence who actually wins than it is to make a political statement. Make no mistake; you CAN make a statement by voting 3rd-party, or even by staying home (although this mostly says, “I’m apathetic”). Please weigh your options carefully, though. Your vote has power. You can use that power practically (to influence which candidate wins), or ideologically (to show your support for a third candidate). Which is more important to you, at this place, in this time?

ANECDOTE: Back in college, if you got the cafeteria after 6:30 there were often only two entrees left, and they were both gross. We knew that eating either one would result in depression and mild nausea, but that skipping dinner would leave you really hungry. It’s possible that a hunger strike might have influenced the food service people to change… but just as I had to face the objective fact that all my options were nasty, they had to face the objective fact of a limited budget. So, I usually picked the least nasty thing and got on with my life. My point is that you have the same dilemma. Unless you enjoy the political equivalent of Turkey Surprise, the realistic options are objectively distasteful. And, while skipping the electoral dinner probably won’t make you faint and wobbly… it will leave you with a president whose election you didn’t affect. Think about what matters most to you.

Via Scripting News, I found a pointer to Russ Beattie’s weblog, where he points out that everyone in the world should make their voice heard in this upcoming US election.

Now, Russ is clearly in favor of Kerry. So, in fact, am I. Regardless, I think I’ll try an experiment: anyone who wants to express an opinion regarding the upcoming US presidential race who does not have a weblog of their own to express it is welcome to email me at mcj4 at kent dot ac dot uk with a subject line “Weblog Op-Ed” (or something similar). I won’t publish an anonymous Op-Ed, so I would appreciate knowing who you are and where you’re from–a bit of a bio, if you will. I will, upon request, keep the published version reasonably anonymous. And I’m not, of course, obligated to put anything and everything sent based on this offer on the WWW.

Thirty days. Make your voice heard.

I would love to find an MP3 or Quicktime of the debate, as I’d like to listen to it, rather than watch it. Perhaps I’ll fix comments on this weblog so that someone can leave me a link to the audio… ?

Either way, reading the transcript is encouraging. When I say it’s encouraging, it’s because I never felt that the war in Iraq was justified on the international stage. I would have felt this way had I lived at home, but living abroad during this time has made the European perspective on the war in Iraq a bit more real; in short, I really think our president chose poorly.

That said, I’m glad Kerry was concise and forthright in his choice of words. While I doubt I’ll be in love with the foreign policy of any US president in the next 8 years, at least he was clear about stating the truth: there was no connection between 9/11 and Hussein, and the war in Iraq has probably done more to encourage anger and terrorism targeted at the United States than anything else.

KERRY: I believe in being strong and resolute and determined. And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are.

But we also have to be smart, Jim. And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking if off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.

KERRY: This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the president of the United States of America.