After reading the articles on what the Bush twins had to say at last week's invite-only get-together, I was worried Sen. John Edwards' (D-N.C.) daughter Cate Edwards might be just as disappointing. Much to my enjoyment, I found Edwards a star of intelligence and sweet southern charm. Not only did the recent Princeton graduate speak freely off the cuff — as opposed to the Bush twins who relied on note cards — but she took questions from the audience!

At one point during the event, Cate Edwards even took a question from a girl wearing a big Bush/Cheney sticker and beautifully outshined the girl and her question about the war in Iraq. If you are curious as to what the question was, it had to do with why both her father and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) voted for the war in Iraq yet against the $87 billion dollar bill to aid our troops.

Edwards' calm response was that President Bush had all but lied to Congress when he proposed the war, making it seem as though going into Iraq would be with the support of an international coalition and that we had the funds and resources to get the job done with little cost to American lives. After seeing that the war was not going as planned, why should Congress write Bush a blank check? The girl who had posed the question actually left in silence after that.

The Bush twins didn't even take questions from their own supporters — clearly showing that they are either not intelligent enough to respond in a timely fashion or that they really don't know their father's political viewpoints well enough to speak on his behalf. Sorry Mr. President, sending your party girl daughters around to campuses for you isn't going to win this election. Try taking a few pointers from Cate Edwards who was both classy and charismatic.

Sjolund is a junior economics and political science major.

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