On Monday, Michelle Bachmann came to Miami to garner support from voters. Quite frankly, she struck a sour note here at the U, and left people more agitated than pumped.
Her efforts seemed like a thinly veiled attempt to appeal to Miamians at all costs, drinking Cuban coffee and saying she plans to make Marco Rubio her running mate. She’s currently third in Florida’s polls. Miami-Dade is the largest GOP county in the state, with Cuban Americans making up around 70 percent of the registered republican voters.
Beyond the eye-rolling that this brought on, Bachmann’s stances and what she actually said raised our hackles far more than her politics. She mentioned God in her speech, which is disconcerting in a potential presidential candidate. Our country was founded on the idea of the separation of church and state. If she wants to believe in God, that’s her business. But to use God as a reason to drill for oil in the Everglades, and later rescind her statement by saying it was a joke? We’re not buying it.
Bachmann wants to drill in a national park. The Everglades serves as a habitat for numerous threatened and endangered species. If Bachmann’s plan comes to fruition and drilling does happen, this will be putting an even greater strain on an already shrinking ecosystem. Drilling in Florida is different from drilling in Alaska, for example, because people actually live here and boundaries between the Everglades and residential areas have become a bit blurred over time.
Fewer environmental regulations isn’t exactly what we need. The entire city has been swamped because of all the rain, and building in the Everglades won’t exactly help the natural flow of the water from land to ocean.
All that being said, we’d like to congratulate Bachmann for making it this far in the presidential race. But, the bottom line is that it’s time for her to head home. She’s clearly not the candidate the Republican Party is currently endorsing, so why should we?
Editorials represent the majority view of The Miami Hurricane editorial board.