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As Always Its The Peoples Choice 

The Queens Couriers slogan is "Its All About You." Three issues that are on everybodys mind these days the subway series, the N.Y. Senate race and the election of the next president of the United States.
Rarely have such passionate and important issues come together at the same moment in time. Issues on which many residents of this borough have widely different points of view.
The Courier has had a policy for its first 15 years of publication of not making political endorsements in election years. Our feeling has been that we present the view of both national and local candidates in a fair and balanced manner, and then urge all residents to register and vote a privilege that many have died to protect (as recently as the sailors that died last week on the battleship in the Mid-East).
This year, however, we have decided to change that policy and, with this issue, we are making our first endorsements for this first election of the 21st century. The issues are too important, the personalities too compelling to remain neutral and on the sidelines.
Our nation and our state are at a critical crossroads and the choices are stark and clear. So this week we will give our opinion, while at the same time presenting the opinions of other Queens residents which take up the pages of this weeks paper also.
The Presidency
Bill Clinton has been President for eight years. There are school kids in the 5th grade who have never known a time when there wasnt a President Clinton. They have been eight tumultuous years with plenty of highs and some lows (most notably the Republicans scandalous impeachment farce). But, we believe that when you look at where this country was eight years ago when George Bush was president and look at where we are today, instead of massive deficits we now have a huge surplus. Instead of massive unemployment and huge welfare rolls, we have a booming economy which has produced high employment and slashed welfare rolls. Nationwide crime is down. 
There is hardly an area where our nation isnt better off under this Democratic administration than it was before. Remembering back to 1992, we recall that Bill Clinton made only one central promise to improve the economy. And his administration kept that promise.
When President Clinton came to Flushing this past Monday, he reminded the audience of one important fact: that Vice President Al Gore has been at the very center of the decision-making of this administration which gave us this remarkable national turnaround. Why would we want to turn back to another Bush administration? When you consider that the next president will most likely get to appoint three new Supreme Court justices, the stakes get even higher, with issues such as a womens right to choose clearly in the balance. We believe Al Gore is clearly the superior candidate and we urge our readers to elect him as our next President and continue the path of economic and social advancement so ably set forward over the past eight years.
The Senate
New York has a tradition of electing senators who truly mesh with the State status as the Empire State. Robert Wagner, Jacob Javits, Robert F. Kennedy, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and current Senator, Charles Schumer, are all statesmen who New Yorkers could be proud to have as our representative in Washington. In Hillary Rodham Clinton, we have a candidate who more than lives up to that heritage.
Her experience as the nations First Lady has put her on the national and international stage and that clout will automatically make her a high profile advocate for New York. Her lifelong work on behalf of children will make her an experienced leader in perhaps the most critical area of government policy education. As she has campaigned across the state over the past year, she has gotten to be truly acquainted with the state and its concerns. We are especially impressed by her knowledge of Queens and its people, its neighborhoods and its concerns. She has become almost a fixture on the streets of this borough and we have been extremely impressed by her energy and empathy for the issues that matter to us in this county.
Hillarys opponent, Rep. Rick Lazio, on the other hand, has conducted a truly uninspiring campaign. He has spent millions of dollars on TV ads that have people on the street supposedly unable to answer the question, "name three things Hillary has done for New York." Well, this week The Courier went to the streets and turned the tables on that ad by asking Queens residents "name three things Rick Lazio has done for New York." Their responses appear on page 11 of this issue. Not one could name anything he has done for the state. What we do know about his record is that he has been a protg of Newt Gingrich and was part of the cabal who voted to close down the federal government and for impeachment.
A reader of The Queens Courier with a son in a school for developmentally disabled has brought to our attention that Lazio co-sponsored a bill against fair housing for the disabled. This kind of abysmal record and unimpressive resum is definitely not what New York deserves. We urge our readers to vote for the person who we know will make New York proud Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Congress
Queens has been fortunate to have in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Gary Ackerman. He has not only an impressive record in the House on matters both foreign and domestic, but he has never forgotten his roots in this community and never wavered in his diligent local work on behalf of his constituents. His Republican opponent from Nassau County strikes us as something of a flake (he went to a recent fundraiser for Ackerman and posed for photos with Gary and Hillary Clinton and on his campaign flyers he spells his own partys candidate for Senate as Rick Lassio). We cant afford to lose the experience and leadership of Gary Ackerman in Congress and we urge our readers to cast their vote for him.
The State Senate
Finally, there is a real race for the State Senate seat held for many years by Frank Padavan. While Padavan has done some good things over the years, his positions on issues such as care for the mentally retarded and others has been, to put it mildly, backward. His insistence on continuing his lawsuit against the minor league baseball stadium at St. Johns University, even though the thing is built and was used all summer long without the community collapsing, is an example of how Padavan just doesnt get it. Its time for a change and the voters in that district have the chance to put a fresh and talented new State Senator in the Democratic candidate, Rory Lancman. This activist civic leader has worked to better his community for years and his advocacy for better health care for Queens has reaped enormous benefits for the borough. We urge our readers to vote for Rory Lancman for the State Senate.
Get Out the Vote
Finally, we implore all our readers to turn out and vote no matter who is the candidate of your choice. This is an election of enormous importance affecting our lives from the White House to the state house. Election Day is Tuesday, November 7. The polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Remember the saying, "Bad public officials are elected by good people who dont vote."