Walking around in the winter wonderland that has draped itself upon campus, I notice small reminders of this past fall. Turn your eyes heavenward and you will see them, too.

Taped to numerous dorm windows across campus are red and blue election

propaganda. Still.

The question that begs to be asked is why? Why? WHY? Each end of the political spectrum needs to be admonished. There is no reason to keep those signs up. The support was needed before the election — not after.

To the winners: for shame. Yes, our man got in. Excellent as that may be, it is always proper decorum to quietly remove external signs of support when all is said and done. My John Deere green and yellow “Bush/Cheney farm and ranch team” sign left its sixth floor home the day the results were confirmed. There really was no reason to keep it up. As hard as it was, I didn’t rub the Republican victory in anyone’s face. Keeping those signs up is a quieter way of doing just that. C’mon, we have class. Let’s show it.

To the non-winners: double shame. Give it up. You lost, plain and simple. It’s the way things go, and no matter how many signs you leave up, how many rallies you attend or protests you participate in, it won’t change the fact that George W. Bush is our president. Election results are not decided by those who whine and cry the loudest.

Kerry is just another name and face that will be forgotten by our great-grandchildren’s history teachers. Kerry was the democratic hero simply because he was a Democrat. You could have put any nameless, faceless entity up on a soapbox preaching the liberal jargon and his name would be plastered on windows campus-wide.

The signs are only the beginning. The buttons, pins, patches and bumper stickers should go, too. Those of you who put the stickers all over campus property need to get out there and start scraping. Furthermore, the “Women for Kerry” signs needed to be destroyed the very day they were printed. You’re not a woman for Kerry — you’re a woman absorbed with egoism and convenience.

These things aren’t just an eyesore; they are a tool of division. Why continue to split an already polarized country? Be an evolutionary: Work through the system. Democrats have just as much right to be there as any Republican — as long as they are granted that right by the people.

For all of the conspiracy theorists out there who blame the 3 million vote gap on general “disenfranchisement,” look to history. We lived through the gilded age, didn’t we? Democracy is more or less intact.

I know it’s hard to let go. The election absorbed so much of the past year of our young lives. Don’t abandon your ideology, but move on from the candidate. Put up a Democratic Party sign instead. Yet, if you simply must hold on to the Kerry paraphernalia, at least hide this shame. Set up a shrine in the corner of your room, and on the second of the month, illegally burn a candle or some incense to the god of secular humanism for better luck next time.

Leslie Arntz is a freshman magazine journalism major and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].