ASUO sponsoring Obama rally
The Commentator received a letter to the editor today from University student Aaron Polk. It’ll be in the next issue, but I thought it would be timely to post it on the blog:
Dear Editor,
When I opened up my Facebook today, the first thing I noticed was an event invitation to an Obama rally this Friday. An even bigger surprise was that Obama himself was coming. To be honest, I was glad to see that he was coming because I saw it as an opportunity to protest and show him that not all young students are naive enough to fall for his charismatic speeches. But that enthusiasm didn’t last for too long when I found out that the ASUO was sponsoring this event.
Now quite frankly, I was unbelievably pissed off. Not because of the fact that the man who is the center of my anti-Obama Facebook group (the largest one in terms of members) was going to come to my home state and sway our youth with his facist-type speech skills, but because of the fact that my incidental fees were going to a partisan cause, especially a man with costly political agendas. Seeing all the flyers around campus that encourage students to report biased actions that take place, it’s safe to say that we go to a school that emphasizes on fairness. Even our own IRS (as much as we hate them) won’t give tax deductions to donors of partisanship for the sake of fairness. I can even say that the majority of our liberal youth supports the broken program of affirmative action.
But using the (already) over-priced incidental fees to bring a candidate that almost 1,470 (seven percent of students identify as conservative) U of O students don’t support is completely biased and undermines our ability to attain a fair campus by giving everyone a voice. It’s hard enough to know that these expensive incidental fees are the reason why some people can’t even afford to go to college.
And if anyone were to ask me, “would you be writing this if John McCain were to be sponsored by the ASUO instead?” Why yes, despite my strong support for the man, I would be against it unless Obama were to be sponsored as well. I believe in this, all for the sake of fairness and that every student deserves a voice.
Sincerely,
Aaron Polk
In the EMU today, I saw several students painted signs for Obama’s appearence. My hunch is that i-fee money was used for the supplies, but it’s just a hunch. Here is the Facebook event description about the created by the ASUO executive.
“…The student government (ASUO) is so happy to invite you, on the Friday of finals week, to come out to this event and get involved in the political process and choosing our next President.
The University of Oregon is known for its politically charged student body, engaged electoral work, and record setting voter registration and get out the vote work. The student vote has helped to determine the outcome of many legislative races throughout Oregon and the student vote is going to be no different this November 2008 in the Presidential election!
The Oregon Primary is only a couple months away. So come and check this out and get involved in this extremely important election.
This is the first candidate for nomination for President that has asked to come to the U of O so far. So come out to Mac Court this Friday- because students are going to have a determining effect on this election. Come be a part of it…”
