I am a retired teacher and the last 20 years of the 40 I taught in the public schools of Illinois were spent with people who had just reached the age to vote. I regret to say that not too many of my students were very interested in the elections, what the candidates had to offer or what their qualifications were. What a pleasure it is for me to see that this attitude is changing!

Not too long ago, I talked with a young man who was working his way through college. He asked to “be allowed” to help with the democratic campaign. While we were talking I said to him that people my age should vote the democratic ticket because of “our present” and that today’s young people should vote the democratic ticket “for their futures.” He looked as though he didn’t understand my meaning. My explanation was that I want the years which I have left to be protected with better health care, protected social security, controlled Medicare benefits and lowering the cost of drugs as examples. I said that these were things which affected my age group right now.

I told him that the one thing which concerned him at the present was the acquiring of a good education. Gov. Clinton has a plan for assisting young people to get the best education possible. Loans will be made available for financial assistance, these loans need to be repaid either by paying a small percentage of their earnings over a period of time or performing community service to help kids to stay off drugs and to stay in school—in other words to be role models for the younger people.

But I believe that I reached him most effectively when I mentioned that his generation will be affected by the selections to the Supreme Court which are made by future presidents. I told him that I firmly believe that we need a balance of approaches to the many problems with which this august body must deal to determine important outcomes. I reminded him that the judges named to the Court in the next few years will be serving long into the next century. I think I reached him on that.

So this is what I am saying to you: Consider the qualifications of the candidates, ask yourselves what the present administration had done to improve your situation as well as that of your families. Is your family as well off now as it was four, eight or twelve years ago? I doubt it. Ask yourselves why Mr. Bush is now claiming “things need changing” when he did not see that changes were necessary during the last four years. While you’re at it, ask yourselves (and him) about his activities, when he was vice president, regarding the Iran-contra affair. If you read “Fooling America” by Robert Parry you will get a good picture of the man who is asking us to trust him with another four years of our lives. He has proven that we cannot do that.

Rich Williamson is a man whose entire campaign is based upon the Willie Horton style of dirt-slinging of the last presidential campaign. He neglects to say that Mrs. Braun was complimenting Gus Savage for his work in 1979 which was prior to the time Savage was a representative from Illinois. Williamson’s entire campaign is based upon negativism, and we Illinoisans are not buying that kind of campaign rhetoric this time around. So read, ask questions, listen and THINK! Good Luck!

Martha E. Wetzel

DeKalb County Coordinator

Clinton/Gore Campaign ‘92