For purposes of disclosure you should know that in my role as a Greek House Director, Gordy Heminger is my supervisor.
I also know Jim Wasil, current President of the College Republicans, who lived in my house last year. Jim has a bright future in politics because he is an articulate, engaging young man.
However, I think he may be focusing his considerable energies on the wrong issue as regards Aaron Shumaker. Mr. Shumaker has every right to support the candidate of his choice and to use his title in making his personal endorsement. The fact that he is USG president is of no consequence as long as he is clear that his endorsement is a personal one.
Thus, Mr. Shumaker has been unfairly criticized by this paper (“Shumaker’s actions lack common sense”). How can the News equate his personal choice for council with an abdication of his duties as USG president? This is what your newspaper infers when it states that Shumaker, “placed his choice of city council candidate over his choice to represent the students that elected him.”
How exactly did Mr. Shumaker abandon his constituency? Did he miss USG meetings to campaign? Did he use USG stationary? Did he call for a resolution in support of Mr. Heminger at a USG meeting? Did he threaten to withhold support from his USG colleagues on issues of concern to his constituency if they did not support Mr. Heminger?
If he did none of these things, and you have reported no evidence that he did, your indictment of him is as reckless as it is misguided.
Further, your editorial also seems to suggest that unless every student agrees with every other student on every issue, “enemies” get created. The term “enemies” is way over the top. Some of us might call political disagreement simply democracy at work. Believe it or not our representative form of government demands dissent as an obligation to insure freedom.
This process of democracy seems to have taken a back seat in our anxiety ridden post 9/11 world where normal disagreement with our government is easily confused with a lack of patriotism.
When citizens are made to feel that they must go along to get along, or can be criticized unfairly for taking an unpopular stand, or are deemed as lacking “common sense” when they choose to support someone or some thing that everyone is not going to agree on anyway, we are practicing, however inadvertently, another form of government in the U.S. It’s called fascism.
Let’s be clear. Candidates seeking elective office routinely seek public endorsement from public figures who have titles. It’s how the battle is fought. I suspect Mr. Wasil, a veteran of the 2004 re-election campaign of the president, knows this all too well. What then is the real issue?
It is the fact that Mr. Shumaker is endorsing a candidate who is not Republican?
If he had supported Ms.Harlett I suspect the controversy created by Mr. Wasil would not have occurred. Mr. Wasil may be young but he is already very good at what he does. Karl Rove would be (and probably is) very proud of this technique.
I had privately predicted that Mr. Heminger would face some sort of last minute activity meant to divert attention from the real issue of the campaign which, in my opinion, is the relative inexperience of the Republican candidate when compared to Democrat Heminger, who has already served two terms on Maumee city council.
ROB PRINCE
GRADUATE ASSISTANT
