Two Campaigns, Two meanings, Two places

In Brazil, specifically in São Paulo, Marta Suplicy and José Serra are both running for mayors this year. Current mayor Marta Suplicy's been doing bad on the newer polls. Her opponent, José Serra, from the Social-Democrat Party (PSDB) is showing his strength now, after having lost the Presidency for Lula two years ago.

Until now the campaign for mayor on the biggest South American city has been being weird. Marta Suplicy did a great job on the city, but she's being criticized exactly for her job. São Paulo is a dirty city. Since its growth wasn't planned, there are places which are fully disorganized. The traffic jams every single day, even on weekends. To take cars out of the street, there are days in which cars cannot be driven according to the license plate number. Garbage collecting is now being taxed. São Paulo has become not only the biggest city in Brazil, but the most expensive too.

José Serra campaign focuses on the opposite what Marta's been doing. He pledges not to create anymore taxes. And he says he's gonna invest on public transportation as a way of getting our traffic better. His ideas are pretty much the same as Marta's for most fields. But he's gonna win because Marta, according to his campaign, invested on palm trees instead of any other thing.

I believe it is important to live in a nice city, where there are trees to process all the carbon dioxide we throw on the atmosphere. But certainly Mr. Serra doesn't believe on that. He believes that São Paulo deserves to stay as an ugly city as it has always been. And that's because Mr. Serra was part of the prior presidency ministery, in which they raised the brazilian debt with higher rates. He lost last election for presidency and now he wants to become a mayor. For some these would be a major drop on a political carreer. For him it is one of the best things on his life. He's never been elected for any administrative position. He'll have the opportunity to show whether he's competent as a mayor now, since polls are showing he's gonna win.

In the same continent, up north, Bush and Kerry debate about who's going to be the next USA president. That debate is a little more complicated. Both candidates have a similar plan for most areas. The difference is not on the words, but on the actions. Democrats has shown their effort on reducing the USA debts during Clinton government. But during that period, the big frauds caused by big companies like Enron and MCI brought the american economy to one of the biggest debts on their History. As a fact, Bush lost the track on the number of job positions opened on the marketing. That is undeniable.

But he says he did it on the sack of the War on Terror. As a brazilian, I should say I don't believe in such thing as a "war on terror". That's totally useless. What should be done is investment on intelligence, that is, investing on good spies who can actually seek real terrorists and act before they do. That would be the War on Terror Bush should have done. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan certainly did make this world any better.

John Kerry is out there to show better results. I believe that american people should try to balance their positions and, from time to time, put a conservator as Bush out there to see if it is good. But at this time, if you look at it carefully, Bush is not going to be able to lead USA for a good future. Actually, under his hand US is probably going to pass through a time of indefinition and moneyspending with useless wars who seems now be more for oil than for anything else.

Let's wait and see.