Negative Endorsement

When the world wakes up on 5 November, it will learn who the people of the United States have elected as its new president.

It will be a momentous day no matter who is the victor. The end of the most disastrous presidency in recent history is occasion enough; but for the first time in living memory, the often fraught workings of the American political machine have produced two candidates worthy of the post. Despite the enormous personal differences that separate Barack Obama and John McCain—to say nothing of their policies—they both exude the dignity and assurance of statesmen.

The campaign of one candidate, however, has been sadly lacking in dignity or assurance. It is a shame that the collective memory of a patriot and public servant as committed as Mr McCain might forever be tarnished by the unsavoury pandering and despondency of his party’s message. Having survived a lifetime of combat—political and military—it would be an ill-fitting end to his career if Mr McCain were undone by as unworthy a figure as Sarah Palin.

Sadly, it is the patronisingly termed "lovely Sarah Palin," plus the worst elements of the Republican campaign, upon which the Edinburgh University Conservative and Unionist Association (EUCUA) have seized in announcing their endorsement for the McCain-Palin ticket.

EUCUA's epistle to McCain, while perhaps a touch hubristic, might at least have some value in the debate were it not couched in the most ill-informed, even bigoted terms.

EUCUA chairman Harry Cole declares: “When questioning those who attack Palin and ask them to cite when she had expressed these ‘fundamentalist’ views in this campaign, or when she had allowed her personal views to affect her judgment as governor of Alaska, not one person could give me an example.”

One wonders who he might have asked: log on to YouTube and you would discover that Mrs Palin—who is currently under investigation for having improperly used her powers as governor to seek the dismissal of her sister’s ex-husband from the state police force—declared in a CBS interview with US journalist Katie Couric that she would consider going to war with Russia over the issue of Georgian sovereignty.

The tide of drivel, were it not so patently false, would be hateful. “He has consorted with a self-confessed domestic terrorist,” continues Mr Cole. “He worshipped for 20 years in a church led by a man who called on God to damn the USA, and referred to his own nation as the ‘US of KKK.’”

As has been widely reported by the US and UK news media, Ayers—an expert in inner city education—served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. They also served on separate boards of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative and would occasionally see each other in these roles. A year ago, the pair met while walking through the neighbourhood in which they both live.

At the time of Mr Ayers' dissident activities with his group, the Weather Underground, senator Obama was eight years old. 

On the subject of Obama's pastor problem, in a speech entitled ‘A More Perfect Union’ delivered in 2007, Senator Obama disavowed the remarks made by his parish priest, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, calling his comments "not only wrong but divisive... at a time when we need unity."

But the most incredible EUCUA comment comes from vice-chairman Ed Kozak: “It was a Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, who brought in the community reinvestment act forcing banks to lend to high-risk individuals.”

The community reinvestment act is targeted at pushing banks to lend to small businesses in inner cities and deprived communities, previously denied credit by the discriminatory practice of blanket "red-lining" entire areas. The legislation has been credited with increasing entrepreneurship amongst minority business owners; these are the “high risk individuals” to which Mr Kozak alludes.

If meaningless endorsements are the order of the day, then this paper is backing Barack Obama for president. But any patronage—for whichever candidate—should be given on the basis of real information, not by piggybacking upon headline-grabbing nonsense.