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"I always kind of expected college boys to be sophisticated. Well-informed. Tolerant of diverse viewpoints. Well, I&amp;#039;ve only been in college a week, but so far, I&amp;#039;m disappointed. Today, I had my first real (college) political conversation with someone who views the world a bit differently than I do. Instead of sharing some fresh insights, he called my ideas &amp;quot;stupid,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;retarded,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;wrong&amp;quot; followed by a &amp;quot;no offense. Want to hang out tonight?&amp;quot; How cute. And if you&amp;#039;re reading this, buddy, I&amp;#039;m busy. But maybe my expectations for college boys are too high. I mean, look at our presidential candidates and their campaigns. This has been a devastating time for the economy, and a lot of taxpayers (like our families) may have to shell out a lot of money to fix things. And instead of talking about their plans for coping with the Wall Street disasters, both campaigns immediately cast blame on the other candidate. They seem to ignore the fact that \u00BE of the November presidential ticket (that would be Obama, Biden and McCain) were in the Senate when problems began. They&amp;#039;re all partly responsible for this mess, but no one is stepping up to take some of the blame. Remember back at the beginning of this election, both McCain and Obama promised to run a &amp;quot;different kind&amp;quot; of campaign? A campaign that avoided mudslinging and politicking, and focused on the issues instead? What happened? Maybe politics is just inherently dirty. A game where all people care about is winning (even if they want to win so they can accomplish good things) isn&amp;#039;t the best environment to promote respect. But maybe that&amp;#039;s where we need it most. And if our presidential and senatorial and congressional candidates don&amp;#039;t recognize that, then we should. We can start by being respectful of each other. Talk to your crazy-liberal best friend or off-the-charts-conservative boyfriend. Really listen to what she or he is saying. Try to understand where these views come from. You don&amp;#039;t have to agree, but you also don&amp;#039;t have to get into a shouting match. Our politicians still don&amp;#039;t seem to get this, but name-calling does nothing constructive. If we can relate to each other despite political divisions now, then maybe, by the time we run for office, a &amp;quot;different kind&amp;quot; of campaign won&amp;#039;t be a broken promise\u2014it&amp;#039;ll be our reality. xoxo, Katie katieg@cosmogirl.com  Before you go anywhere, head to AA.com for great deals on flights. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/life/school/advice/a10654/open-minded-election/>