Cindy McCain Brings out Protesters

By Owen Carhart

Cindy McCain’s visit, on Oct. 19, to campus brought out both McCain sympathizers and protesters on.

Many students must have noticed the Facebook group that announced the protest for the event. All said and done there were around 24 student protesters outside of the CUB, showing their disapproval for the McCain campaign.

While these protesters were absolutely within their rights to protest outside the CUB, my argument concerns the protesters motives rather than their rights.

For reasons of argument I will assume that these protesters are supporting Senator Barack Obama in the upcoming election. If this is the case then I urge these protesters to follow Senator Obama’s lead in conveying a positive message. While I was working in New Hampshire for the Hillary Clinton campaign, we would often employ counter-visibility techniques when there was an Edwards or Obama event.

The purpose of these counter-visibility techniques was to provide our candidate with a certain amount of presence at an opponent’s event. I believe, these protesters would have been better received if they would have operated under this philosophy.

Rather than having a negative message these protesters should have embodied the message of hope that embodies the Obama campaign.

After all, if we are going to support a leader that wants to remove the void that angry politics has left in the American public then we should give that message a chance, even when the opposing team is playing in our court.

That said, as one would expect given the recent tone coming from the McCain campaign, the McCain rally wasn’t the most positive of rallies. Cindy McCain, like her husband, threw around the word socialist as if Senator Obama was the leader of the proletariat and a violent revolution was coming to destroy our capitalist way of life.

What those opposing her negative tone must understand, is that it is this negative tone that is, and will continue to, stalling the progress of the McCain campaign. It is a desperate attempt by McCain to climb up in the polls and is, also, the first step towards admitting defeat on Nov. 4.

In closing, I would simply like to urge my fellow students that support Senator Obama’s campaign to make a concerted effort to embody his message of hope and change. At a time when a financial crisis is crushing the American economy and spirit, this message of hope is the one needed to lift and unite us.