Something is wrong in the search for the next president of
the United States. The contest for the next Oval Office resident began
surprisingly early; however, very few quality candidates are catching the
attention of the American public. This is not to claim a lack of potentially
effective leaders, but they are being ignored, chastised and ridiculed. The
problem here is that the ones who deserve our most emphatic rejection, whose
candidacies should bring about nothing but humiliation, are being thrust upon
us, while others are being hidden from view.

While seemingly shortsighted, it is clear that the
Republican Party leads the way in rejectable candidates, and all must be
dismissed as viable commanders in chief. The current frontrunner is a cross-dressing
quasi-conservative whose résumé includes one mayor's post and a state attorney general
position, a man who has been through two divorces, has an estranged
relationship with a son and a daughter and yet has the audacity to run in the
party of "family values." Rudy Giuliani, who holds several liberal positions
from stances such as gun control and abortion, should be an embarrassment to
the Republican Party. Pat Robertson's endorsement should be the pudding on the
cake for the impracticality of putting this man anywhere near the White House.

The rest of the candidates in the GOP field don't deserve
much consideration either. The supposed party of law and order seems to be so
brainwashed by that notion that it feels a character from "Law & Order"
should be its next president. Fred Thompson's minimal experience of two Senate
terms and his laughable stuttering performances at the primary debates
demonstrate that this man works best when given the opportunity for "take two."

Turning to the Democratic side, we are exposed to a lengthy
list of men and a woman who are potentially qualified to become our next president.
However, we run into a major problem: Most people don't know who they are.
Before brushing this idea away, understand that the candidates I speak of are
not the ones you hear from every day.

We seem to be so enthralled by one-on-one dogfights in this
country that we forget we are electing one person out of a potential 300
million; it's OK to let others in.

Conservatives are quick to remind the nation that they are
the party of national security through a tough foreign policy. While this may
be, the Democratic Party has a candidate of its own who possesses one of the
most intellectually informed foreign policy minds on the planet, U.S. Sen. Joe
Biden, D-Del. An ethical man of modest finances, he has served on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee for three decades and released, almost one year
ago, a realistic solution to Iraq that involves breaking the nation out of its
arbitrary Churchillian borders to three states that reflect the true
demographic situation. He seems a perfect fit, given our present situation, to
take office in Washington, yet with little publicity and limited finances, his
poll numbers remain in the single digits.

The other Democratic candidate who receives little attention
— and when he does, it's frivolously negative — is U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich,
D-Ohio. Perfectly representing the liberal ideology other candidates only pay
lip service to, he has stood up for what he and much of the country believes
in. He has been a member of the House of Representatives for 10 years and has
avidly advanced the liberal agenda, pushing for federally subsidized health
care, same-sex marriage, preventing privatized social security and getting our
troops out of Iraq. He has been the leading lawmaker in pushing for executive
impeachments of the Bush administration, formally calling for the impeachment
of Vice President Dick Cheney in April. While these should serve as rallying
points for a popular run at becoming the Democratic candidate for president, he
is laughed at. Attention seems to be focused more on his stature — he's 5 feet,
7 inches — than his record. Or you have what happened at the last Democratic
debate, where he is remembered not for his continued reminders that he was
right on the Iraq issue, but how he answered the last question given to him.
Mr. Kucinich was asked, of all things, if it was true that he had once seen an
unidentified flying object.

CNN, the sponsor of the debate, should be ashamed for asking
that question. They ended that debate by reminding the American people that
this man's name was not Clinton, Obama or Edwards. Instead of allowing Mr. Kucinich's
policies to echo through the electorate, his UFO sighting is remembered; it
becomes him.

This is the dilemma we face in electing our next president.
It is not a want of good candidates, but the lack of knowledge the American
public has of them. It is a foregone conclusion that neither Mr. Biden nor Mr.
Kucinich will become our next president. I would like a reason why.

Ben White ([email protected])
is a junior majoring in sociology and political science.