20110616 EDITORIAL: Who ‘likes’ being courted by Ma?

EDITORIAL: Who ‘likes’ being courted by Ma?

Amid cheers, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Sunday inaugurated his presidential campaign headquarters with a performance put on by a group of about 20 female dancers chanting the slogan “Taiwan cheers, great!”

It is laudable that the organizers wished to inject a dose of vigor and energy into a political activity that has otherwise been perceived by young people as boring. The performance could easily warrant no further discussion, if it were regarded as a mere entertaining intermission aimed at bridging the gap between Ma and the nation’s youth.

However, the campaign headquarters branded the young women dancers as a “secret weapon” and made their performance the centerpiece to the campaign office’s inaugural news conference. It appears that this electioneering gimmick has thus far not been well received. Not only has it left several pan-blue-leaning talking heads frowning with disapproval, members of the general public also find themselves scratching their heads and wondering what sort of mindset Ma’s campaign team harbors when it comes to engaging with young people, many of whom will be first-time voters in the January presidential election.

Many are wondering whether those working on Ma’s campaign are so arrogant that they take young people for fools or whether Ma’s electoral outlook is so bleak that they are desperately trying to woo them with a stage full of dancers flashing their smiles and legs.

Do they not realize that young people want respect and like to be treated as adults? Does every member of Ma’s campaign team believe all young people are blind idol-followers whose minds and hearts can be won over simply by presenting Ma as a celebrity and having him make puffing gestures and act cute on the campaign stage?

Many were reminded of the campaign for Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu’s (胡志強) re-election bid last year, which featured a promotional video titled “Hu’s Girls” — twin sisters dancing and singing. How disheartening that Ma must resort to the same tactic in the hope of winning the support of young adults.

The point of the campaign office inauguration should have been to present Ma’s campaign platform, not to surround the presidential candidate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — wearing big thumbs-up gloves in an allusion to Facebook’s “like” button — with dancing and cheering young women.

In case Ma’s campaign team has not realized, many of the nation’s young people, after being treated to a pleasant spectacle of dancers in shorts on Sunday, will once again be agonizing over the reality of the hardships they must face thanks to these past three years under Ma’s governance.

To name a few, a recent poll conducted by 1111 Job Bank indicated that the starting salaries for college graduates fall short of their expectations and that the gap appears to be widening. The nation is also faced with a serious youth unemployment problem, with some polls indicating that new graduates are experiencing the same high levels of unemployment as those with high school degrees. A further concern for young adults is the ever-rising price of houses, which are out of the reach of most first-time homebuyers.

These are the issues that the nation’s young voters want Ma and the policymakers in his government to address urgently. They do not want to be served up fluffy dance moves or high-fived by Ma at one of the various campus events he has been so busily engaged with these past weeks.