Professor Frederic Pearson, a foreign policy and elections expert and director of CULMA's Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, commented about last-minute campaign rhetoric among the presidential candidates. "After wars there is a lot of switching of horses. It's unusual to switch horses in the middle of a war," Pearson said. Voters must ask themselves this year if the Iraq situation merits change and "can Kerry do something meaningfully different to get us out of it?"