George Wang

The U. S. Presidential campaign of 2004 is at its end, and the result of this campaign probably will be known for sure in three days. The newly elected president, whoever he is, with a sharply divided nation and troubled Iraqi front, needs the nation's support.

Now, while the campaign emotion level is lower, election is about over in days, and our memory is still fresh, a reflection of this year's presidential race seems to be a topic of interest for some.

During the past few weeks, enthusiastically expressed political views from the supporters of both sides in St. Louis Chinese community, opened a Pandora's box of emotions in the community. Once a political expression had been made public out there on the news media, readers' evaluations of it were inevitably a reflection of their own personal bias, conviction, value system, and philosophical enlightenment. The public exchanges of political views among Chinese friends and compatriots, as I recall it, are the first time event; and they are stimulating, educational, and soul-searching. As long as the arguments are issue-oriented and facts-based reasoning exercises, they can be healthy to the democratic spirit among friends.

Politics is an emotional thing. In a presidential election, who is the winner is important. The final result is ineradicable. But perhaps the most valuable thing to many believers of democracy is that how the election game would be played during an election by the politicians. Regrettably and parenthetically speaking, this year's campaign has been disappointing. From the beginning, the campaign was fierce and dirty. The campaign was full of character attacks, fear manipulations, and giving misinformations to the people. Having watched all past presidential elections since Kennedy vs Nixon (one advantage of being old), I found that negative tactics in this year's campaign had reached the intolerable level for a leading democratic nation.

How to deal with terrorist from abroad became a disproportional heavy subject in this year's campaign. It gives an impression of that all we want to do is fighting the evil people, not to worry about the causes which might have turned them for terrorism. The presidential candidates were forced to show who had more guts; and who was the best fighter against terrorist. We all know that the 9/11 had changed many things, which gave President Bush the chance to run the campaign with one theme. The election result could be determined by one thing, one thing only, that is the candidate's guts. The truth of the matter is that to fight terrorist we need much more. In addition to using military force, we need wisdom to plan, intelligence to know how to plan, ability to convince the world we are right, and diplomatic tactics to solve the intricate problems. To fight terrorist we need to win their hearts , not just to kill, either on their soil or on our land.

John Adam and Thomas Jefferson, the famous founding fathers of the U.S., had been very close friends before they turned into political adversaries. Their relationship was an intricate life-long exchange of affection, respect, and disagreement. The focal point of their argument was political and concerned about the issue of how the United States' government should be reigned. It was an honest argument of political philosophy and ideology. They debated extensively over the issues, but never lost respect for one another, and never used catchy demeaning labels for opponent. Of course, that was about over one hundred and eighty eight years ago. Time has changed, and moral standard has changed. But nostalgic dream of having a clean presidential race every four years should not be considered excessive and impractical.

Ironically, Adam and Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826 at different ages (90 for Adam, 83 for Jefferson). The two-party system they both helped to create for the U. S. still dominates the center stage of political life.