In Tuesday's upcoming Dane County Board Election, no clear-cut candidate emerges as the best representative from District 5, which is composed almost entirely of students. Yet to abstain from endorsing a candidate would only further the breeding apathy and proliferate the abysmal student voter turnout rate. Therefore, based on our obligation to motivate students, we endorse Ashok Kumar over David Lapidus.
We concur that neither candidate will accomplish all they have promised since there is neither funding nor capabilities to do so. Both candidates severely lack sound policies to combat all issues, especially in the vital area of transportation reform.
We find Kumar's light rail initiative impractical, for the funding and the support are simply not available. However, his opponent Lapidus' transportation plan of coordinating ride share through the use of cell phones is even more preposterous.
If the representative elected to the seat from District 5 accomplishes nothing else, he at least reminds the County Board that the students are still a part of Dane County. Without that presence, several services important to students, such as the Tenant Resouce Center and the Women's Center, lose a fraction of their voice.
Kumar and Lapidus are like young men play-acting as politicians, but the Dane County Board does not exist in the land of make-believe. We forsee that Kumar will better grow into his suit, so long as he learns to play well with others. His disrespect for people on the opposite side of the political spectrum will only be detrimental to political progress.
For Kumar to truly blossom as a proper representative of the constituents of District 5, he must escape his tree-hugging bubble and learn that politics is not only full of campaign promises and drumming up partisan support, but of compromise and straying from partisan hackery.\
Despite his many faults, we must acquiesce that Kumar is the candidate most ready to represent the constituents of District 5 on the Dane County Board.
Cardinal View editorials are crafted independent of news coverage.
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