The Vote or Die campaign is impartial? Please.
Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, a rap artist and fashion mogul, brought his supposedly non-partisan Vote or Die tour to a couple thousand in attendance at McGonigle Hall on Wednesday. Along with his swing-state tour came the not-so-surprising legions of fans that explicitly support democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
I don’t understand. I thought Combs was remaining impartial. Combs himself didn’t support either candidate for president. If that’s so, then why were so many Kerry fanatics present?
Very simple – Combs is misleading his adoring public. On the surface, his message is clear. According to VoteOrDie.com, Combs’ incentive for the tour, which concludes today in Miami, was to increase voter awareness among the American youth and to make the vote a “hot, sexy” entity.
Unfortunately, everything is either hot or sexy in America. The clothes we wear, the music we listen to and now even the candidate we vote for is supposed to be sexy. Mr. Combs, making the vote sexy isn’t the answer.
Force-fed pro-Kerry remarks aren’t the answer, either. Combs reiterated several dozen times that young voters are the wildcard in this election. He even went into a detailed description of what a wildcard is, just in case those of you in attendance were unsure. By definition, a wildcard means uncertainty. There was nothing uncertain about the negative comments pertaining to Bush and his administration.
As a member of the media, I have received extensive training in the strictness of ethics in journalism. What isn’t ethical is Temple’s ability to fund an event that implicitly supports one candidate. I have no doubt that if The Temple News printed George W. Bush’s mug larger than Kerry’s, the university and its student body would have a temper tantrum.
The university should do a better job of listening to the voices of every student, not just those registered with the Democratic Party.
Christopher A. Vito can be reached at cvitox01@temple.edu.
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