Presidential Hopeful Visits YBP
by Karin Haug, Customer Service Bibliographer
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, Karin Haug, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Academia staff or YBP Library Services.
John Edwards
In what we hope will be a series of visits by presidential candidates, YBP recently welcomed John Edwards to find out where the presidential candidate stands on the issues most closely affecting libraries.
For a man without a library card (he cites the excuse that he’s never in the same place for very long), Senator Edwards did seem to show an awareness of, if not a direct plan for action on the hot issues being discussed in the halls of academia. The employees of YBP did not let him off easy, asking questions about everything from the war in Iraq to the health care crisis to the environment. When challenged about the astronomical loans college students seem forced to acquire, Edwards claimed the desire to help state and local budgets with funding so public universities’ tuition could be lowered. His plan includes making the first year of higher education at public universities and community colleges free to qualified students who are willing to work at least 10 hours a week. He proposes the national government should absorb these costs, not state or college budgets which are already under too much strain. He did not, at the time we met, however, have a solution for taming the rising tuition costs at private universities and colleges. Having mortgaged my future in order to be an alumnus of such an institution, I was hoping to see that situation addressed as well.
Edwards believes that the economy grows when more people are able to go to college. He wants to see children from working class families like his own have the opportunities he was granted. One of his goals is to fill the wide gaps between public schools housed in affluent communities and public schools housed in poorer communities. His plan includes increasing teacher salaries and offering grants or even full scholarships to education students who commit to teaching where top-flight educators are in short supply. Edward’s platform generally addresses the concerns of the middle and working class, and on more than one occasion he reminds listeners that his father was a mill worker. He is, or was at least before he became a wealthy senator, "one of us," and promotes himself as a Robin Hood of sorts, fighting for the "American Dream."
In terms of the new restrictions being imposed on libraries (particularly through the Patriot Act and enforced internet restrictions), Edwards seems less knowledgeable. He wavers a bit in the gray, saying some censorship of the internet within libraries is important to protect children from pornography, but he admits he could foresee it going too far. He believes in protecting people’s right to read and see what they reasonably have the right to read and see, but he seems more focused on giving the "right answer" then firmly rooted in his belief. He defends the Patriot Act, saying it did a lot of good in terms of sharing information between government agencies. Edwards does believe, however, that it went too far it terms of libraries. He offers no specifics, nor a plan for change, and it seemed as though this issue could fall by the wayside left in his hands.
As he left the cafeteria, he shook my hand. His eyes sparkled as he laughed at my simple question. The last book he read? The Da Vinci Code written by New Hampshire’s own Dan Brown. Naturally, I thought to myself, in the fashion of a true politician, he provides the perfect political answer to a hardly political question.
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