EDITORIAL

The political machines win again, America loses

The past week has seen the abrupt end to what had been an interesting political season. It almost seemed like we could have presidential candidates who weren't groomed and hand-selected by their self-interested political parties. We had been treated to almost weekly debates, name calling, and actual discussions about new ideas, but that's all over now.

Any time that ideals come into discussion, the major political parties get scared. Not that Democratic candidate Bill Bradley or Republican candidate John McCain were necessarily great reformers or political outsiders, but they made the bigwigs sweat a little. And anytime we can make the men in charge sweat, that is a good thing.

Bradley had the support of the common man, and. he had a down to earth way about him. It didn't take him long to convert over to sleazy name calling, however, which didn't really help.

The bigger loss is Senator McCain. A moderate Republican, he had crossover appeal to independent voters and Democrats who grew disillusioned with the Clinton/Gore team. The candidate with the most significant experience in war, he was not afraid to battle for his beliefs, even against his own party. His legacy may be in his call for campaign finance reform, which might have hurt his own party as much or more than the Democrats. But it would be the right and ethical way to run an election, and would have been better for America in the long term.

Predictably, it was Bush's financial support that allowed him to crush McCain. The Republican lobbyists found their fortunate son, and there has never been a doubt that he would tow the party line, from beginning to end.

These candidates' withdrawals leave us with a pointless and expensive primary season which we, the taxpayers, help to pay for. Politics as usual will be the theme of the season, and then we will get to choose between two candidates who wouldn't know