The election is over, there is no longer any reason for bickering and arguing over which candidate would have better served our country and ourselves. Throughout the election’s chaos, many have been caught up in the campaign storm and have forgotten about issues that will, in fact, affect them regardless of which candidate we elected.

Internationally, the United Nations is attempting to deal with nuclear weapons issues in Iran and North Korea. The United Nations is asking Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programs and North Korea to either allow it to inspect its weapons program, or to suspend it completely. The U.S. role in these situations merits discussion.

Nationally, we have the 9-11 Commission staring us in the face. Encompassing all that surrounded the attacks, it’s purpose was to get to the bottom of intelligence problems and find ways to prevent future terrorist attacks. We must redirect our attention back to their ideas.

In Minnesota there are issues very important to the University that affect students personally. The state’s bonding bill needs to be reconsidered. Funding requested by the University totaled a much-needed $155.5 million. Due to legislative gridlock, the request was not granted in the spring. Focused attention will help to gain lost support.

We need to resume advocating for better support from the state for the proposed on-campus football stadium. We need to keep the proposed tuition increase at 5.5 percent and not higher. Also, we need to deal with Minnesota’s proposed amendment to ban gay marriage, an issue that is very important to the diverse culture of our University and our state.

Overall, it is time we regain focus on what matters now and, more importantly, what matters to ourselves. There are real issues, and now that the campaign storm has cleared, we can put our energies into what matters to us.

Fran Zerr is an editorial board member. She welcomes comments at [email protected].