WHO WANTS TO BE OUR PRESIDENT?
The two major political parties have done their jobs. They have held their conventions, thrown their receptions, anointed their candidates, and produced their television shows. Gov. George W. Bush wants us to believe that the Republican Party is the big-tent party and there is room for everyone. Vice President Al Gore would have us believe that he's really just your everyday Joe. But throwing great parties and producing TV shows-even four-day miniseries-is not the same as leading a nation.

As Americans decide who is going to be our first leader in the 21st century, there is still a lot of unfinished 20th-century business, and AIDS is part of it. With 40,000 annual new cases of an incurable, preventable disease, we cannot allow any candidate running for political office to forget that AIDS is still a very real American issue. In many ways it exemplifies the work we have yet to do to make this truly one country. It is not acceptable that a disproportionately high percentage of Americans with HIV are black, brown, yellow, or red. It is not acceptable that a disproportionate number of those most at risk for HIV are young, female, and poor. The American people have to communicate our fears, concerns, and desires to those who desire to serve us in public office. The elimination of HIV and AIDS from the planet must be on the list.

Bush wants to "lead us." Gore wants to "fight for us." We need to know if Bush will lead us to universal health care. We need to know if Gore will fight for federally funded needle-exchange programs and end the genocide waged against Americans at risk for HIV infection because of their drug addiction or their relationship with an addicted person. We need to know if "leaving no child behind" extends to gay and lesbian children and children living with HIV. We need to know if fighting on behalf of working families extends to those families led by gay and lesbian people and people living with HIV.

America is more prosperous today than at any other time in our history. Our challenge is what to do with that prosperity. Will we use it to widen the opportunity gaps between rich and poor, men and women, black and white, healthy and sick?

When we go to the polls in November we have to decide who is committed and equipped to make sure that all of America-in this prosperous time-has access to health care, quality education, and freedom from the fear of gun violence. Clearly, on health care issues in general and on AIDS specifically Gore and Joseph Lieberman are superior. Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has consistently supported HIV/AIDS funding. While in Congress, Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential candidate, never saw an HIV/AIDS appropriation bill he liked or an HIV/AIDS criminalization bill he didn't like. Gore was instrumental in helping the U.N. Security Council to look at AIDS as a security risk. Texas, under Bush's leadership, is the leading state in the number of working parents and children without health insurance. It is 47th in delivery of social services and 48th in per capita expenditure for public health. Texas is also above the national average in teen pregnancies, STDs, and annual new AIDS cases per 100,000 population.

But these records can't stand alone. AIDS activists and health care advocates must work to make sure that both parties are addressing HIV and AIDS in their campaigns and that each party is prepared to move forward with aggressive, effective HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and research agendas if elected.

Victory for AIDS activists won't be determined simply by the outcome of the November election. Our victory will be determined by our ability to get all the candidates to agree that every American deserves access to health care, every senior citizen deserves prescription drug benefits, every child deserves a good education, and that we are going stand by and build on our educational system, that we're not going to use our prisons as the next public housing program, and that we're going to make sure we finish the business of the 20th century and eradicate HIV and AIDS from the planet.

Wilson is the executive director of the African-American AIDS Training and Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. He has held the positions of AIDS coordinator for the city of Los Angeles and the director of policy and planning for AIDS Project Los Angeles.