GUEST POST BY CHAD W. LUTZ, KSU INTERN

It’s that time of year again, where leaders and the prominent all make their last vying attempts at swaying our votes before we take their fates into our own hands. No, I’m not talking Enron. It’s Election time, the one time of year where the lines between the upper crust and the lower peons blur exposing a level playing field. However, as a college student, whose life consists solely of mid terms and research papers, I have had little time this year to do any research into the issues on the ballot. This is what bothers me though. There haven’t been any speakers on campus, nor candidates handing out literature, signs or posters that explain where their party representatives stand.

When sitting around with friends the other day, I remembered suddenly that Election Day was coming up and the response I got from the rest of my peers was startling. Most of them didn’t even know the day was approaching, and the rest didn’t care. I, for one, have voted in every election since I was given the right to when I turned eighteen, I think it’s senseless not to. But I noticed that the lack of awareness about the issues was among many of the complaints my friends had. Some used the cliché and tried to tell me their vote didn’t matter, which I dismissed and tried to pull more out of them to try and understand their lack of interest in how their future is shaped. Others said they only vote in national elections because those are the only ones that actually impact their lives. It seems as though both sides have taken a back seat approach to the Democratic process, with neither side feeling as though the other cares what they think or do, leaving a mess of confusion in the middle ground. I believe it is on both parties to get up off the couch or come down from the podium to meet halfway and clear some of the debris before it builds a wall that no one can scale.