Aiming to flush out the differences between Democratic presidential hopefuls, students, city officials and concerned citizens gathered Thursday to showcase their candidates to UW students.
Hosted by the Democratic Law Students Association, representatives for the Clark, Dean, Edwards, Kerry and Kucinich campaigns all declared the need to shift the nation's priorities away from war to address homeland issues. However, each candidate has his own unique approach.
Clark has a long history of military service, earned the title of general, and was even wounded in Vietnam.
\[Clark] has the resum?? of a hero but very progressive stances on the issues,"" Dane County Clerk Joe Parisi said.
Of particular interest to students is Clark's idea to pay up to $6,000 per year for the first two years for every person who wants to go to college. He also wants guaranteed health care for children through their college years.
Besides Kucinich, Dean is the only candidate with executive experience. During his 11 years as governor of Vermont, Dean balanced the budget 11 times, according to UW-Madison law student Greg Renden.
""One of the things I appreciate about Dean is that he's done the things he's promised,"" Renden said. ""He has an ability to present solutions to every problem he's criticized.""
Renden said a running theme of Dean's campaign is reversing the loss of community, and much of his support comes from community grassroots efforts.
John Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He hails from a working class background and has a large focus on middle class values, as Donsia Strong Hill, a former White House worker, described. Edwards wants health care for all children and to focus on cutting the deficit instead of military expenditures.
""We don't believe what family you're born into controls your destiny,"" Hill said.
Unlike Edwards, Kerry came from a privileged background. However, he still chose to volunteer in the Vietnam War, where he was shot three times, according to George Twigg, state coordinator for Kerry's campaign. After this experience, he started a career of activism, including involvement in antiwar causes.
He has a perfect pro-human rights voting record since 1995, Twig said. Alluding to his low showing in early polls, Twigg said he finds assurance of Kerry's good intentions in that ""he took out a loan on his house to keep fighting.""
Kucinich wants free tuition for all two- and four-year public college students. He has not accepted any corporate donations to his campaign and, as supporter Ann Seidl said, ""has a plan to get Americans health care-not health insurance, but health care.""
She also highlighted Kucinich as the only Democratic candidate who has pledged to completely end the war, as well as voiced Kucinich's support for the legalization of medical marijuana.
