ALLENDALE –- Reverend Al Sharpton, hoping to become the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in order to run against President George W. Bush in this year’s election, spoke to an over capacity and enthusiastic crowd at Grand Valley State University yesterday. With West Michigan consistently labeled a conservative area and Grand Valley State University a campus with relatively low student participation in politics and activism, GVSU was an unlikely campaign stop for Al Sharpton.
While Rev. Sharpton’s speech was ostensibly about voter registration, it also functioned as a campaign stop in which Sharpton encouraged students to cast their vote for him in Saturday’s Democratic Caucus. His campaign is about three issues: the war in Iraq, the economy, and education. Early in his speech he stated unequivocally that President Bush lied about the reasons for the war in Iraq and that these lies had cost at least 500 soldiers’ lives and an estimated cost of $500 billion dollars. Moreover, Sharpton pointed out that he was the first of the candidates to oppose the war, and unlike the media-declared frontrunners, he never voted for the resolution authorizing war in Iraq, and indeed would not have had he been in office.
As for the economy, Sharpton made the case that the Bush administration is representative only of corporate interests and has repeatedly rewarded these interests with tax cuts and no-bid contracts that come at the expense of workers in the United States. Central to the problem with jobs, according to Sharpton, our trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he stated was directly responsible for the loss of many jobs in the United States because it encouraged corporations to exploit workers in Mexico. On this issue, Sharpton was also able to distinguish himself from the candidates such as John Kerry, who supports NAFTA and the neoliberal agenda or Howard Dean, who thinks that he can be elected and simply “fix” NAFTA. Sharpton and Representative Dennis Kucinich are the only candidates who understand that the country must completely withdraw from NAFTA and renegotiate an agreement that has strong labor and environmental protections.
On education, Sharpton’s positions were more closely aligned with the other candidates: he wants more money for higher education, he wants to end the No Child Left Behind program as it was never funded, more funding for public schools, and encouraged students to continue to pursue their college education.
Perhaps the most refreshing part of Sharpton’s speech were his calls for students to take advantage of the fact that the they can cast their vote for whomever they want to win in the caucus, and regardless of whether or not their votes go to him, he wants to see students ignore the media and vote for who they truly think is the best candidate. Moreover, Sharpton stated that all of the other politicians only come to students when they want something from them, which is only votes, and that students are otherwise neglected when there is not a campaign in progress. Sharpton said that students should show that they have power and exercise it to demand things of the politicians, rather than repeating the cycle of politicians coming to students each election but never delivering. To his credit, he pointed out that he has been to Michigan numerous times, has fought for affirmative action and civil rights, and has supported consistently supported students, unlike other candidates.
Sharpton, who is pragmatic about his chances of winning the nomination, promised that he is in the race to stay and has already made plans to attend the Democratic National Convention and voice his constituents concerns.
There is also a photo gallery with photos from Al Sharpton’s visit at http://www.mediamouse.org/gallery/sharptonvisit04
