How to Get Dominick Costantino's Vote: A Young Voter Manifesto

Honesty

To get my vote on Election Day, a candidate must have certain qualities. First of all, I want someone who is honest. There are so many politicians who get caught in lies throughout an election campaign. I like and admire candidates who remain true to themselves throughout a campaign and keep their stance on issues the same. I also like a candidate who is down to earth. So many politicians are high class and act like they are better than everyone else. Why should someone with so much wealth be representing a country that is mostly middle class and lower? It’s alright to have money, but I don’t agree with flaunting it. I’m sorry but no one cares how much money you make in a year.

Education

An issue that is very important to me is education. I am a full-time college student and every year my financial aid goes down. We need more funding for higher education. There are so many young Americans in our country who are extremely bright, but just cannot afford to pay for a college education. Education needs to be a priority at all levels. The government needs to make sure there is enough funding so young Americans have a change to compete for jobs with other countries like China. The candidate who I vote for will prioritize education.

Healthcare

Another issue that is important to me is healthcare. I am a supporter of Obama’s current health care plan. Because of his plan, I am covered under my parents insurance until I am 26 years old. I cannot imagine what life would be like without insurance. I had to go to the emergency room in January, and my bill would have been $14,567 if I didn’t have insurance. Who can afford those type of bills? Also, I am considering going to graduate school after Wilkes to further my education. I will be able to go without worrying about healthcare because I am covered for six more years. I will not vote for any of the Republican presidential candidates because they all want a full repeal of “Obama Care.” This issue is extremely important to me and I cannot look past it when voting.

Gas Prices

The price of gas is ridiculous. Pretty soon the American people are not going to be able to drive because gas prices will be so high. For some, the price of gas might be restricting them from going on vacations, paying for prescription drugs, going to the doctors, etc. There is no reason why the price of gas should be as high as it is. From my understanding, a majority of our oil comes from places in the world that we are currently protecting or places that we protected. Since our soldiers are risking their lives to make peace in these countries, we should be able to get oil for hardly anything. Why should the other countries become rich and Americans suffer? If the price of gas keeps on rising, I don’t see how the American economy will ever recover. It really ticks me off that none of the politicians really care about the high price of gas. Just because you are all millionaires and can afford to fill up your tank no problem, doesn’t mean that the average working American can!

Jobs

Since I will be graduating from college in two years, jobs is another important issue for me. So many of our companies have gone overseas. Our government needs to bring these companies back to the United States so that Americans can have jobs. So many Americans want to work, but there is just not enough jobs out there. The government should reward those companies that move their headquarters back to the United States. The government should also reward products that are made in America. A majority of the products we buy are made in China. We all need jobs and a candidate that tries to create millions of jobs will get my vote on Election Day.

Eliminate Political Ads

One thing I cannot stand is political ads. Ever since I was in elementary school, I hated election season because of all the negative and stupid advertisements on television. From an early age I realize how cruel some of these ads are. Throughout my years of education, I learned how much money is spent on a campaign. Sources say that this presidential campaign will cost more than any of them in the past. I think there needs to be a regulation on how much a candidate can spend on a campaign. Billions of dollars are wasted each year just to get elected into a political office. We could do so much good for the world is this money was spent on other things. If we put all the money being spent on this Presidential election towards cancer research, we would have a cure. Millions of Americans would be able to live because there would be a cure to the disease that kills so many mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. We could also feed, clothe, and house every single homeless person in America with all the money that is spent. We should start thinking about making this world a better place and stop with all this nonsense of advertisements that promote negativity. Our country could be a great place if individuals had different priorities.

Dominick Costantino
Communication Studies
Wilkes 2012

How to Get Bryan Calabro's Vote: A Young Voter Manifesto

Outsourcing 

By far the most important aspect I am looking for in any candidate running for the upcoming presidential election is the creation of jobs in the U.S.. It is time for the U.S. to stop outsourcing jobs to foreign nations, specifically China and India to produce goods. China has the world's second-largest nominal GDP, totaling approximately US$7.47 trillion according to the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

Granted, there are many problems associated with pulling jobs out of China and India. One being a consumer’s willingness to accept a price increase in the products they buy.  Fox example, the apple iPad. If it was produced in the U.S. alone, there would be a jump in the creation of jobs (nearly 67,000) but the price of the already expensive $500 iPad, would jump to $729. Are people willing to buy an iPad with that much of a price hike? There might be some, but most would pass. This needs to be addressed and addressed fast before China overtakes the success of our economy and we fall into a greater recession.

Education 

The next pressing matter I would like to address would be our need to reform education. Our education system is faltering in so many ways. Throughout my life, I have seen classmates flunk multiple tests, not show up for class and treat the teacher disrespectfully yet they still pass the class and eventually get their diploma. Half of your grade, for the most part, depends on your ability to show up for class. This is sad at best.

Teachers aren’t coming to work and students are let off with an easy grade. This needs to end. Even at my college, I have had multiple professors set a deadline for a class project or paper, just for four of the same people (out of the 20 people in my class) repeatedly not meet the deadline.

Granted, this is not everyone but when I ask my friends how hard their high school was, they consistently tell me it was a joke. Your education shouldn't be a joke. A student shouldn’t be saying their education is a joke. If more people were well educated, our economy wouldn't be in such a dire state.

New rules should be in place to govern over the success of each individual; individuals meaning teachers and students. The government needs to hold every learning environment to a higher standard and cut funding for organizations that repeatedly fail at preparing students for their career.

Censorship

And finally my last question to ask to a future president would be their view on censoring the Internet.

For the past 14 years of my life, I have taught myself everything I would ever need to succeed from the Internet.

The beauty of the Internet is that it is (was) censor free, information was endless and people connected sharing billions of gigabytes worth of data.

Stealing copyrighted work is wrong, but censoring the Internet because of the minute amount of people that pirate music/software/movies and books is totally preposterous.

It will only stifle growth and entrepreneurial spirit when it comes to online marketing and innovation. Would iTunes exist if Napster didn’t exist? Would NetFlix, Hulu or ONDEMAND exist if piracy didn't exist? I think not.

Take for example, Paulo Coehlo. Paulo Coehlo is a bestselling Brazilian novelist (The Alchemist) who is notorious for the promotion of his work through piracy. Ever since a pirated Russian edition of The Alchemist was posted online in 1999, he supported illegal downloading. Instead of damaging the sales of his book in Russia it sent them soaring to a million copies by 2002 and to more than 12 million today.

When the SOPA bill was up for review October 26, 2011, he promoted himself on the front page of the world’s most resilient torrenting website called thepiratebay.org based out of Sweden. The website hosted a picture of him hosting all his work for free across all operating platforms.

He concluded that the “pirates of the world need to unite and pirate everything I have ever written.”

He stated:

“The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever. First, because all anyone ever does is recycle the same four themes: a love story between two people, a love triangle, the struggle for power, and the story of a journey. Second, because all writers want what they write to be read, whether in a newspaper, blog, pamphlet, or on a wall,” he said. “The more often we hear a song on the radio, the keener we are to buy the CD. It’s the same with literature. The more people ‘pirate’ a book, the better. If they like the beginning, they’ll buy the whole book the next day, because there’s nothing more tiring than reading long screens of text on a computer screen.”

Bryan Calabro

Integrated Media/Communication Studies

Wilkes 2013

How to Get Kristina Seiger's Vote: A Young Voter Manifesto

As a 20 year old, female, first time voter there are several things that I am looking for in a candidate ranging from their stance on issues to their personality. I consider myself a very skeptical person to begin with so it’ll take a lot to persuade me to vote for a candidate. I will outline just a few of my criteria because if I went in-depth my printer would probably run out of ink about every little thing I look for in a candidate. I also understand that not every one of my criteria can be met and that I have to find a happy medium to be able to vote for anyone.

Equality

I believe that every person deserves to be treated equally whether they be female or gay or any other characteristic that people deem to be less than. Women are still paid less than their male counterparts and are not featured in the rule as government. Yet men in these positions find it necessary to make decisions regarding a woman’s reproductive rights. Not to mention that gay couples do not have the same rights as straight couples have. Gay rights have not come along even though they are people too. I find it disturbing that people can be voted into office even if they disregard an entire subsection of the population. Everyone should be treated equally and sadly this country hasn’t realized this yet.

Education/Jobs

The American dream is for parents to be able to send their children to college so the children can have a better life than what the parents had. This is becoming harder to do with the lack of financial aid that is provided for college students. The politicians say that they want to make it easier for working class kids to go to school, but how is that going to work out for all the rest of the middle class kids who are struggling. Now less financial aid is going to be spread out over a larger group of people. Then the politicians talk about how they want to bring manufacturing jobs back to this country, and does having a college degree really qualify them to work on a factory line? Meanwhile there are no jobs out there for people who do graduate with a degree and then they have to move back in with their parents and pay off all their debts. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to be fixed and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Likability

The candidate needs to seem likable and honest. If someone flip flop from one day to another, how can they be trusted? They need to stick to their convictions and if they believe something they need to stand by it. Too often people seem to be above everything or they say something than do the opposite and then they seem unlikable. By being forthright even if their opinions don’t match my own is still worth more than someone lying and saying what I believe. If they can have a good time and seem more down to earth by playing a saxophone or singing shows that they could be a fun person and I would probably like them more then.

These are just a few traits that could make a candidate more likeable to me in the long run.  The candidates need to be able to work together towards a long term goal rather than just until the next election cycle. But I find these traits to be almost nonexistent and not talked about. So I primarily focused on traits find out in the open that drives my voting habits.

Kristina Seiger

Communication Studies

Wilkes 2014

A Superb State of the Union

On Tuesday, January 24, President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress and the American people. The main theme of the speech was “An America Built to Last.” If we have learned anything about Barack Obama over the last five or so years, it is that he is an excellent speaker. That was evident again in this speech.

He began by referencing the end of the Iraq War. This is one of the few things he has accomplished in his first term that people give him credit for. The President also ended the speech by highlighting the mission he set forward to capture Osama bin Laden. By bookmarking the State of the Union Address with his two major accomplishments, many believe this was more of a campaign speech than a State of the Union Address. I disagree with this.

Although the President skipped over major issues such as the debt and deficit crisis, he touched on many issues the average American’s are most concerned about. The majority of people in this country belong to the middle class and are worried about the struggling economy. By addressing plans of job creation, I believe he got the attention of most people. His ideas seem to make sense. Bring back manufacturing jobs from oversees and make America the industrial powerhouse it once was. America is a country who can’t stop talking about freedom this and freedom that at every turn. Why not give Americans a fair shot to become successful in their own terms. What I think the President understands that the Republican candidates do not, is that middle class Americans are not envious of the one percent. We do not want them to give us their money as many of them probably worked hard to earn it. We simply want a chance to work in a decent paying job, pay a fair amount of taxes, and have the opportunity to live comfortably within our means.

The President stayed true to the things he has supported for years. He discussed American energy which has become very important to environmentally conscious generation of young voters. He also addressed the rising cost of a college education. For years, this generation has been told to go to college because without a higher education we cannot and will not succeed in America. Now that we have finished our education, we are strapped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt and we are no closer to obtaining a job than we would have been with a simple high school diploma.


There are some issues the President skipped over that the GOP has repeatedly pointed out. They are annoyed that Obama neglected to discuss the national debt and deficit crisis. However, I believe at this point in the recession, most if not all Americans are aware of the fiscal crisis that the entire global economy is facing right now. What good does it do to dwell on things that cannot be fixed within a one year period? Instead the President offered solutions to tangible problems that the American people deal with on a daily basis. Creating jobs is good for the economy. A boost in the American economy is good for the global economy. More money coming into America means less money we have to borrow from others.

Overall I appreciated the message of unity that the President try to convey. He gave an example of a military unit going out on a mission. They don’t care about race, gender, sexual orientation, or social class. It only matters that they are all Americans and they all must work together to find solutions to the problems that directly or not are negatively affecting our country as a whole. If he was trying to make this speech a campaign speech, it may have worked. I think the frustrated middle class appreciated that he fought for us. I think his blatant reprimanding of Congress’s inability to work together looked good for him. It took some blame we tend to place on the President and put it where it really deserves to be. One person can’t fix our problems by himself; our system doesn’t work that way. It’s a democracy not a dictatorship.

Kayla Mattioli 

Communication Studies

Wilkes 2012