Letters to the Editor

Michigan Party misleading students

To the Daily:

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a supporter of the Blue Party. However, in the interest of objectivity and fair elections, it is important that as a former MSA Representative and Budget Chair I address some of the issues of this campaign.

Over the past year, Blue Party members have led a multitude of meaningful projects, including the drive to register thousands of students to vote, a reformed budget committee that allocated more money to student groups than ever before in the history of MSA and LSA-SG's quest to institute direct constituency.

The Michigan Party, however, could not be more different - only two Michigan Party candidates have any governmental experience at all. Perhaps it is this inexperience that results in a misleading Michigan Party platform.

For instance, the Michigan Party proposes having MSA meetings in the Residence Halls. In fact, MSA held a meeting at Bursley just the other week.

In addition, the Michigan Party proposes a "Community Service Initiative" to specifically fund community service groups. Coincidentally, such an initiative already exists. MSA's Community Service Commission currently doles out $73,000 of student money to service groups on campus every year!

Glen Roe

LSA senior

Daily's liberal bias suspended for coverage of Bush

To the Daily:

During this election time I have felt that the Daily has given a very biased opinion on the election. I was glad to finally see an article ("Students for Bush Optimistic" 11/9/00) about the Students for Bush and our campaign, as we have worked very hard this election year. However, I was disappointed the entire second half of the article had a negative spin to it, supporting Gore and somewhat Nader. I realize that the press should give both sides of the story but there have been numerous pro-Gore articles in your paper and it would be refreshing to see one pro-Bush article in the Daily this year. Hopefully the article about his win will be a supportive one.

Nicole Babcock

LSA first-year student

Blue Party Website resorts to personal attacks

To the Daily:

Why must campaigns always turn to slander to win votes? The problem with politics today is that most politicians focus on slandering their fellow candidates, rather than the issues, or the things that matter: Us.

Specifically, in our microcosm, election politics are simply corrupt. One example that we have recently been alerted to is the Blue Party's Website (http://www.umich. edu/ ~voteblue) in the "differences" section. In this section of the Website, they took an entire page to slander Doug Tietz.

They made comments about Doug having "a lack of knowledge about student government" as well as his "trend to say anything that will get him elected." However the most offensive comment was, "It's hard to believe that there's a 'commitment' from someone who refuses to fill out his entire term." Do these people even know Doug? We thought they were going to explain the differences between the parties. Is the difference between the Blue Party and the other parties Doug Tietz? We know Doug. He is our friend, though we are impartial. We do not even vote in the MSA election.

He is not this monster that they are making him out to be. We first implore the Blue Party to stop being "anti-Doug." But, even more importantly, we urge all of the candidates to stop the corruption, or we will end up with a divided country well illustrated by the current presidential dilemma. We will be the leaders of this country very soon, and if we are corrupt now, we really will hate to see our generation in a couple of years.

Julie Humphries, Nursing sophomore; David Ward, Engineering sophomore