Collegiate Times

Today, Nov. 7, 2006 is Election Day. Today is election is very important for Virginia since it includes the big Senate race. With election commercials bombarding us on our televisions day and night, it?s hard not to notice that our big competitors, Democrat Jim Webb and incumbent Republican George Allen, are out there to win your vote.

So why should we, the college students, care? In 2004, students ages 18 to 24 showed their faces at the poll in a large turnout, but not nearly enough as the older voters who doubled our numbers.

Officials are hoping that this year will bring out even more voters to show that we care, otherwise the politicians will forget about us. Officials are hoping to prove that 2004 wasn?t just a fluke, but that students plan on getting out there to vote again.

Challenger and the Democratic candidate, Webb has a long history of military service in his family, himself having served in Vietnam. He has written and published six best-selling novels, including ?The Emperor?s General,? which became the largest book-to-film deal in 1998. He also served as the executive producer on the popular film made from his original story, ?Rules of Engagement.?

According to his website, Webb served in the U.S. Congress as counsel to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs from 1977 to 1981, and he became the first Vietnam veteran to serve as a full committee counsel in Congress. But he has no real experience as an elected official, which as Vice President of the Young Democrats, Erik Benoist, puts it, is a good thing, saying ?Jim Webb is not a politician, he doesn?t know the ins and outs of Congress, and I couldn?t be more thankful. With other Congressmen resigning as recently as Friday due to shady dealings with the now infamous Jack Abramoff, we need fresh faces in Congress.?

Incumbent Republican Senator George Allen got his start as a student at UVa and when he was named the state chairman of Young Virginians for Reagan. According to his website, he then served in the Virginia House of Delegates and continued on from there to become the 67th governor. He has held the seat as Senator since 2000. Lauren O?Neil, Vice President of the College Republican Federation of Virginia, adds, ?George Allen, along with Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and local offices, are the only candidates we can count on to keep our country safe, our borders secure, and our taxes low.?

So all that personal stuff is nice, but what issues do they stand for, and why should you even bother voting? Webb and Allen practically stand on opposite ends of the earth on their issues, but they do agree on one thing: that they both stand for what they think will make a better America.

Webb?s website does a Webb vs. Allen stance on issues, comparing and contrasting where they both stand on certain issues. Webb is a big advocate for raising the minimum wage from $5.15, while his site claims that Allen does not support raising the minimum wage and has voted against the issue four times.

According to Allen?s website, he supports an increase in the minimum wage when such an increase is coupled with efforts to lessen the tax and regulatory burden on small businesses. Christina Pena, President of the Young Democrats, said ?Jim Webb believes in raising the minimum wage and making healthcare more affordable for all Virginians, while his opponent opposes both of these issues while giving himself a pay raise in the Senate.?

When it comes to education, Webb supports making college tuition tax deductible and making college education more affordable for working families. Allen doesn?t have anything recent about college money on his website, but as a Senator he introduced the ?Flexibility for Champion Schools Act,? which ensures that unnecessary federal intrusion does not cause states, such as Virginia, with successful accountability programs in education to have to dumb down their higher academic standards to comply with the one-size-fits-all standards of federal bureaucrats.

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