Ole Miss Newspaper Endorses Travis Childers for Congress
Students choose Childers for his commitment to jobs, education
Booneville, MS – The Daily Mississippian, the University of Mississippi’s student-run newspaper, today endorsed Travis Childers for Congress. Because of Childers’ commitment to creating jobs and improving education, the paper asserted “that Childers meets the needs of students better than Nunnelee.” The paper also highlighted Childers’ work to restore fiscal responsibility, make college more affordable, and allow students to remain on their family’s health care plan until age 26.
The Daily Mississippian’s support adds to a long list of endorsements for Childers, including the NRA, National Right to Life, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, DeSoto Commercial Appeal, and the Columbus Commercial Dispatch.
The paper’s full endorsement follows.
Daily Mississippian Endorses Travis Childers: We recommend Childers to continue to represent District 1:
Travis Childers attended the University of Mississippi. Alan Nunnelee earned his degree at Mississippi State University. The choice is clear as to which candidate should become the Congressman that represents Mississippi’s District 1.
Once we looked beyond the candidates’ respective alma maters, we discovered that the candidates share many of their views.
Emily Le Coz at the Daily Journal in Tupelo compiled a list of eerie similarities: the same birth year, wives with similar names, owners of small businesses, succeeded Roger Wicker in office– the list goes on. Aside from their party affiliation, the two have strikingly similar views on many topics that usually split down the party line.
This makes this election a particularly difficult decision.
Both of the candidates have previous political experience and a fairly consistent history concerning their views. Both are pro-gun. Both are anti-abortion. Both oppose privatizing Social Security.
To better discern which candidate to choose, we narrowed our view for judgment.
The editorial board at The Daily Mississippian has surveyed the issues we find to be of the most concern: health care, jobs and economy and education.
Neither of the candidates were supportive what they call “Obamacare.” While Nunnelee wants to repeal the health care bill in its entirety, Childers insists we not “throw the baby out with the bath water.” As college students that benefit from various parts of the health care bill, and as citizens close to going out into the job market, there are parts of the health care bill that benefit us. We had mixed thoughts about the health care bill itself, but agreed that the parts that affect us as a demographic, such as the reform of student loans and the ability to stay on the family insurance up until age 26.
The economy is still bleak for those entering the job market for the first time. With the uncertainty that many students face, we like the idea of staying on family insurance. With an uncertain future salary, we are especially fond of paying student loans back a little at a time. Whether or not Childers supports these specific parts, in voting for Nunnelee, we know that we have a scarcer chance to be included in the parts that could benefit us most.
Each candidate deeply vested in ensuring more jobs for more Americans. Childers voted on a host of pro-jobs legislation that earned him the Spirit of Enterprise award from the US Chamber of Commerce. To get more jobs, we must improve the economy, and with that, the country must take care of its debt. Nunnelee seems to want to get out of debt by cutting “pork” and earmarks, but wants to extend Bush tax cuts indefinitely. Childers wants to extend the Bush tax cuts as well, but only for a year– for now. While we like tax cuts just as much as the rest, we liked the idea of testing the waters first. It is deep-seated in how as a college student one must maintain money: Usually, there’s not much of it, and if and when we overdraft, we have to take care of it immediately. The idea of working with larger sums of money is distant for most of us, so we are infinitely more comfortable with the idea of pay-as-you-go and trying to get rid of the debt the country has already accumulated.
Perhaps most importantly is the need to take care of education. Mississippi has consistently fallen to the bottom of education, and even those of us that aren’t from the Magnolia State want the best for its schools. Because we attend a public university, this is also important. We would like to see more improvement, and without any kind of federal money, we aren’t sure whether the poorest areas of Mississippi can make it. Local money helps greatly, but when you start with a small budget, there is little to work with. Nunnelee has said that he wants to improve it, but leave it on a local level as much as possible. In an ideal world, that would work, but when there is little money to provide, that theory is just that– a theory.
It is through studying these three areas that we have concluded that Childers meets the needs of students better than Nunnelee. Even if we forget, for a moment, our shared school spirit.
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Paid for by Childers for Congress
Magnolia Tribune
