Mrs. Carcieri Wants to Take Away YOUR Right to Vote!

A warning for us all from Mike Raia. Somebody better find Carcieri in a public forum and ask him about this. -DK

Remember seven months ago when the PC Democrats and the College Republicans joined forces to register members of the student body to vote before the November election? Do you recall the staggering number of interested students who filled McPhail’s for the debate between me and Pat Brown in late October?

I never had the opportunity to share the success stories of Rock the Vote with the student population. We registered just under 500 new voters in the first six weeks of the school year. Looking at surveys we put together, more than 55 percent of the student body was registered either in their home state or in Rhode Island before moving back to campus. On Election Day, with the help of active student participation, more than 75 percent of the registered voters on the Providence College campus voted at St. Pius or through absentee ballot.

Despite our clear interest and dedication to the American democracy, Governor Carcieri’s loud-mouthed wife doesn’t think we should be allowed to vote. In Monday’s Providence Journal, the First Lady of Rhode Island said, “I truly feel we are not mature enough to vote until we are about that age. I noticed that a lot happened to me between the ages of 18 and 22, when I graduated from college.” (ProJo link)

This is the same woman who sported a pin to the GOP Convention in September that proclaimed John Kerry was the terrorists’ choice for POTUS. I’m not advocating that a candidate should be judged by the actions and opinions of one’s family members, but unless Gov. Carcieri steps to the plate and publicly denounces his wife’s disdain for those of us affected by the issues of college loans and grants, Social Security reform, the war in Iraq, and any other issue to which each of us has an direct interest, we need to stand in the way of his reelection.