Washington University

Political
Not Yet Broken: Tea Party Promises and
Turning the Country Around
Nick Wilbar

Rethinking U.S. Defense Policy towards

Review
China
Kelsey Berkowitz

The Death of German Multiculturalism

Cici Coquillette

Volume 13, Issue 3, November 2010

Promises Kept, Promises Broken

What type of American are you?
Table of
Contents
National Promises Kept, International
Promises Broken Oil-Indignation:
Individual Choice:
The Oil Industry’s Effect on
A Follow Up on the Campus Smoking The Only Thing Changing is the
1 27 Environmental and Community
Ban 19 Climate Health
Joshua Trupmman Jake Lichtenfeld
in Ecuador
Katie Ayanian
Poverty Politics Not Yet Broken: Tea Party Promises
2 Corey Donahue 20 and Turning the Country Around
The Death of German
Nick Wilbar
Four Reasons Why The Health
29 Multiculturalism
Cici Coquillette
3 Reform Bill Won’t Be Repealed Bravest Woman in Mexico, Toughest
Peter Birke 22 Job in the World
Rethinking U.S. Defense Policy
Molly McGregor
Paradox of Healthcare and Wealth 31 towards China
4 Alana Hauser Broken Promises in the Gay
Kelsey Berkowitz
23 Community
You Don’t Get to 500,000 Documents
Hot/Not Zac Moskowitz
6 Alex Kaufman 33 Without Leaving a Few Questions
Jannina Phi
Not Broken Yet
Politician Lunch-Goers Beware: 24 Anna Applebaum
An Intrepid Intern’s Election
7 Education Broken Promises in a Broken
Daniel Rubin Economy:
25 The Economy Won’t be Rebuilt in a
The Rise and Fall of Christine Day
8 O’Donnell Hannah Shaffer
Michael Cohen

Midterm Winners and Losers

9 Gavin Frisch

As We Wait for Superman

10 Eve Herold

Campaign Finance at a Crossroads

11 Nicolas Hinsch

Interview with Charles Burson

13 Daniel Rubin

Feeding Frenzy
15 Andrew Luskin

Redefinition and Rhetoric

17 Will Dobbs-Allsopp
Staff
List
Board of Advisers Director of New Media Eve Herold
Professor Asad Ahmed Bryan Baird Seth Einbinder
Rep Don Calloway Alison Neuwirth
Dean Ewan Harrison Web Editor David Klayton
Robin Hattori Siddharth Krishnan Zack Moscowitz
Professor Bill Lowry Taka Yamaguchi Molly McGreggor
Professor Andrew Rehfeld Neel Desai
Front Cover Illustration
Editors-In-Chief Web Designer Laura Beckman
Josh Truppman Will Johnson
Nick Wilbar Back Cover Illustration
Treasurer Anya Liao
Director of Design Gavin Frisch
Billy Roh
Staff Writers Editorial Illustrators
Layout Team Will Dobbs-Allsopp Kelsey Brod
Jacqueline Gunn Nick Hinsch Amelia Fawcett
Laura Beckman Jackie Gunn Audrey Westcott
Audrey Westcott Jay Evans Christine Stavridis
Alana Hauser Matthew Lauer Kelsey Eng
Louis Liss Lauren Fine
Carol Iskiwitch Betel Ezaz
Alex Kaufman Unless otherwise noted, all images are from
Director of Content Andrew Luskin MCT Campus.
Michael Brodsky Tripp Brockway
Kirsten Miller The Washington University Political Review
Staff Editors Rachel Braun is committed to encouraging and fostering
Corey Donahue Lennox Mark awareness of political issues on the campus
Hannah Shaffer Mariana Oliver of Washington University in St. Louis. To do
Anna Applebaum Peter Birke this, we shall remain dedicated to providing
Dan Rebnord friendly and open avenues of discussion and
Director of Research Taka Yamaguchi debate both written and oral on the campus
Daniel Rubin Steven Perlberg for any and all political ideas, regardless of
Katie Ayanian the leanings of those ideas.
Art Coordinator Mark Dally
Kelsey Eng Jannina Phi
Alana Hauser Submissions
Managing Copy Editors Jake Lichtenfeld Editor@wupr.org
Cici Coquillette Michael Cohen
John Moynihan Alex Tolkin
Ari Sunshine
Copy Editors Daniel Rubin
Puneet Kollipara Emily Hecker
Madeline Enright Brooke Yarrows
Mark Dally Ben Lash
Ben-Parker Goos
National
lllustration by Mia Salamone
Individual Choice:
A Follow Up on the Campus
Smoking Ban
Joshua Truppman
Beginning in July 2010, Washington
University began instituting a campus-wide
ban on all tobacco products. As many of you
know, it was hotly debated amongst students,
in part due to the lack of student input. Now
that it has been implemented, most of the
controversy has died down. Nonetheless, the
tobacco ban is in place and we—as students
and constituents of the university—should
reflect on this ban once again and decide if
it is a fair and reasonable policy that we want
to be administered in our community.
There are valid arguments to be made
both for and against the tobacco ban. On the
one hand, all students have the right to clean
air on campus. Everybody should be able to
leave the library without barreling through a
cloud of smoke. In addition, some students
have lung problems that are exacerbated by
inhaling smoke. One could argue that the
university must protect these students, as
their right to clean air supersedes others’
right to smoke. In addition the university
has coupled the tobacco ban with free
smoking-cessation programs for students,
faculty and staff, which indicates that this is
part of a broader effort to discourage the use
of tobacco altogether.
On the other hand, it is not the university’s
responsibility to dictate the social behavior
of students or to protect them from choices
that are damaging to their own health.
The university does not have a policy
preventing students from eating unhealthy
foods, nor does it punish students who
refuse to exercise. The fact that students
smoke tobacco, while unhealthy, should
not be of concern to Washington University
administrators. In addition, smokers have a
legal right to smoke according to Missouri
and U.S. law. I am not implying that the
tobacco ban is illegal—it is not since the
university is a private institution—but rather
that it is inconsistent with the laws of the
larger community in which Washington
1
University is located. Simply put, smokers
should have the freedom to engage in a
practice that is completely legal, even if it is
hazardous to their health.
Certainly there is no doubt that using
tobacco carries with it significant health
risks. Smoking—both first and second-
hand—has been proven to increase the
chances of acquiring lung cancer as well as
suffering a heart attack. But if the primary
concern of the university was exposure to
second-hand smoke, the administration
would have opted to employ a policy of
designated smoking areas, in which they
established specific zones of campus where
people could smoke.
Furthermore, the ban completely
ostracizes students who both smoke and live
on campus. According to the tobacco ban,
these students are not permitted to smoke
unless they leave Washington University
premises. Thus, anybody who lives on
campus cannot smoke while at home. This
disproportionately impacts freshman, which
may actually be the point. Moreover, the
tobacco ban impacts staff and faculty, many
of whom may have used tobacco for many
years. Who is the university to tell staff—
many of whom work tirelessly to serve
students food or clean our bathrooms—that
they are not allowed to smoke while on
break?
I understand the motives of university
administrators: to discourage the use of
tobacco products, hopefully before students
become addicted. As young individuals, we
are perhaps more able to change our ways
than we will be several years from now; it
only makes sense to try to impact us now.
In some ways, that is the purpose of a
university. A university should help us grow
intellectually and personally, so that we can
improve our communities after graduating.
But this process should not infringe upon
the autonomy of students. Instead, it should
allow students to make personal decisions
regarding their own health, so long as such
decisions are indeed legal. Although it seems
well intentioned, the campus-wide tobacco
ban excessively infringes on the choices of
Washington University students, faculty and
staff.
— Joshua Truppman is a senior in the
College of Arts & Sciences. He can be
reached at jtruppman@wustl.edu.
2 National
Illustration by Kelsey Brod
Poverty Politics
Corey Donahue
One in seven Americans lives in poverty.
Think about that for a moment. One in
seven, or 44 million Americans. Yet the
issue of poverty in America is one of the
least mentioned crises in our country.
While the economy and job loss have taken
center stage in recent national debates,
little of that focus is directed specifically at
the bottom seventh of Americans.
A Census Bureau report released in
September shows that the number of
Americans under the poverty line rose from
40 million in 2008 to 44 million in 2009—
the highest percentage of Americans
in fifteen years. For a single adult, the
poverty line is drawn at an annual income
of $10,830 and the cutoff is $22,050 for
a family of four. The number of people
living in extreme poverty, defined as one
half of the poverty line income, rose from
5.6% of Americans to 6.3%. With a lagging
economy, these numbers are expected to
get worse in 2011 and beyond. In addition,
according to LaDonna Pavetti, a welfare
expert at the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, “It takes time for poverty to
recover after unemployment starts to go
down.” In the United States, however,
unemployment does not look like it will
decrease anytime soon.
Despite the seriousness of the issue,
neither the media nor politicians are
expressly focusing on poverty. Yes,
everyone is concerned about the economy
and job programs, but poverty itself and,
With one in seven
Americans living under the
poverty line, it is time for
eliminating poverty to be a
top national priority.
more specifically, extreme poverty has not
been the focus of a major campaign since
John Edwards’ presidential runs in 2004
and 2008. During the 2004 Democratic
National Convention, John Edwards spoke
of “two Americas” during his acceptance
of the vice presidential nomination. One
America was affluent and did not have
to worry about money while the other
America struggled to make ends meet
and lived in poverty. The issue gained
some traction and this theme was central
to his run for the Democratic presidential
nomination during the 2008 primaries.
But after his loss and fall from fortune, no
other politician has picked up the issue as a
central part of his platform. This is simply
unacceptable. With one in seven Americans
impoverished, it is time for eliminating
poverty to be a top national priority.
Instead, much of the national focus is on
the Bush tax cuts and whether the wealthiest
2% of Americans should or should not
have to pay an extra 4% on their taxes. The
growth of poverty in America is largely a
result of the widening income gap that has
allowed the richest 1% of Americans to
account for 24% of the nation’s income. In
addition, more than 80% of the increases
in Americans’ incomes from 1980 to 2005
went to the top 1%. While conservatives
fret over the injustice of raising taxes on
the wealthy, few are debating what the
right tax rates are for the poorest citizens.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has
shown little pride in measures meant to
help poor Americans, such as health care
reform, and is now more concerned about
not looking like big spenders than about
helping their constituents. While I do not
believe that only a handful of people care
about the impoverished, it is clear that
the issue is not taken to be of national
importance and is only mentioned as an
afterthought to the federal deficit or GDP.
Poverty was barely a footnote in our latest
election. While jobs and the economy were
an important topic, the focus of politicians
running for office was not on the worst-off
of the populace.
In the 2010 budget, President Obama
proposed $10 million be spent on Promise
Neighborhoods, a concept based largely off
programs such as the Harlem Children’s
Zone (HCZ). The HCZ is a very successful
non-profit organization based in Harlem
that includes three charter schools and
various health initiatives, family-focused
National
projects, and after-school programs. The
organization is meant to be a holistic
response to the poverty that exists in inner-
city districts. Because children born into
poverty—due to their surroundings and
the difficulties implicit therein—are much
more likely to be impoverished as adults,
non-profits such as the HCZ try to have a
positive influence on all aspects of a child’s
life from birth until college and beyond.
The Promise Neighborhoods strive for
the same goal. The 2010 budget gave $10
million to the Department of Education
to fund 20 organizations that designed
comprehensive community programs. Like
the HCZ, these would help students from
birth until their career. While they exist
only as one-year programs, the Obama
administration requested $210 million for
five-year programs in the 2011 budget.
Unfortunately, the Senate Appropriations
Committee has only allowed for $20
million and the House is not expected to
offer much more than that.
While initiatives such as the HCZ and
Promise Neighborhoods are encouraging,
support for a larger scale application of
these programs is tepid at best. The HCZ is
funded largely by wealthy philanthropists
and the model seems unsustainable
without government support if it is to be
implemented nationally. In addition, with
the country veering towards fiscal austerity
and members of Congress planning on
cutting spending to decrease the deficit, the
Promise Neighborhoods are not the highest
priority. This is already clear in the funding
being cut from the 2011 budget.
Obviously, everyone agrees that poverty
is a bad thing. All politicians would
genuinely like to see less Americans below
the poverty line. However, although they
truly believe poverty is a wrong, many have
ignored it as an issue of vital importance.
Many members of Congress are too
concerned about a rising deficit and have
paid little attention to the rising poverty
rate. Cutting back on all government
spending for the poor and abandoning any
means of helping those that depend on
welfare to get by would be devastating for
millions of Americans. More must be done
to help those that are struggling the most in
this economy.
—Corey Donahue is a junior in the College
of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at
corey.donahue@gmail.com.
3
companies agreed to $2 trillion in spending
reductions over the next ten years as well.
Four Reasons Additionally, the pharmaceutical industry
agreed to pay $80 billion in discounts to
Why The individuals enrolled in government health
insurance plans such as Medicare. Why
Health did these three industry giants agree to
these kinds of cuts? An influx of over
Reform Bill thirty million individuals entering the
health insurance market would mean an
Won’t Be increased demand for their services. The
big players in the health care industry—not
Repealed Congress— are the ones who truly have
the fate of the bill in their hands, and they
Peter Birke have been on board with the general idea
of reform since the start. As economists
Steve Pizer and Austin Frakt said, “If those
interest groups didn’t want health reform of
The Super Bowl and campaign season the form we got, they would have killed it
have one thing in common: the commercials
are as entertaining as the actual event. The
winner of the best ad in the 2010 midterm
elections was Joe Manchin, the newly
elected Democratic senator from West
Virginia. In his commercial, “Dead Aim,”
Manchin loads his rifle and fires a bullet
into a piece of Democratic legislation.
After the Republicans’ historic romp on
election day, they too are taking aim at
President Obama’s agenda. Party leaders
have promised to shoot down the newly
minted health reform bill, claiming an
electoral mandate to do so. However, when
it comes to their marksmanship, they will
be less like Joe Manchin and more like
Dick Cheney. Here are four reasons why
Republicans won’t try to repeal the health
insurance reform bill.
1. The economy is issue #1, not
health care
When asked in a nationwide exit poll
what the most important issue facing
the country was, 62% of voters said the
economy. Only 18% responded with health
care. Many would attribute the Democrats’
defeat in the election to their lack of
substantive action to promote job creation
and economic stimulus. For Republicans to
engage in an extended battle over repealing
the health care law would be a major folly.
Voters want the unemployment rate to be
slashed—not health reform.
2. The big players in health care
are behind the bill
In 2009, the Obama administration
brokered a deal with hospital groups to
lower federal payments by $155 billion Illustration by Audrey Westcott
over the next decade. Health insurance
4 National
last winter, if not before. They didn’t.”
3. The bill is frontloaded with
benefits that are attractive to
voters
While the bill certainly contains
contentious portions, the individual
measures that will be implemented in
the next few years lend themselves to
broad levels of support. They include
provisions such as small business health
insurance tax credits, a $250 rebate for
every Medicare beneficiary who hits
the Medicare prescription drug “donut
hole,” and measures to prevent insurance
companies from refusing service based on
preexisting conditions. Republicans will
be hard pressed to muster enough votes
when the debate is framed in the context
of charging seniors more for prescription
drugs or refusing to provide tax credits to
small businesses.
4. The bill will eventually become
a staple of the American welfare
state
As Americans come to appreciate the
frontloaded benefits, they will come to
accept the bill and take ownership of it.
Politicians, regardless of whether they
voted for reform or not, will begin to take
Illustration by Audrey Westcott
credit for the benefits it bestows on the
people. This process has already started.
Last spring, Senator Chuck Grassley of
Iowa took credit for the health reforms
found in the very bill he voted against.
Republicans who derided Medicare as
a socialist takeover of medicine in 1965
For Republicans to engage
in an extended battle over
repealing the law would
be a major folly. Voters
want Congress to slash the
unemployment rate—not
health reform.
would be committing political suicide if
they were to try cutting the program today.
Over time, the same thing will happen with
the most recent health reform. After the bill
was passed, conservative writer David Frum
said, “Legislative majorities come and go.
This healthcare bill is forever.” Opposing
the bill might have helped the Republicans
win an election, but overturning it will be
much more difficult than a campaign ad
might make it seem.
—Peter Birke is a sophomore in the College
of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at
peter.e.birke@gmail.com.
Paradox of
Healthcare
and Wealth
Alana Hauser
Wealth and health are often assumed
to be interrelated. However, a new study
reveals that the only similarities between
those two statuses may be their last five
letters.
This truth was recently emphasized by
an epidemiological study conducted by the
Center for Disease Control released this
October. The study used data from 2006 to
examine the difference in life expectancies
National
among populations of various racial groups
within the United States. Officials indicated
that two confounding factors— “ethnic
misclassification on the death certificate
and age misstatement at the oldest ages”—
had distorted previous studies, leading to
less accurate conclusions regarding life
expectancy in the United States. This study
attempted to better control for these two
factors.
This data is both baffling
and ostensibly paradoxical.
Hispanics, on average,
have lower socioeconomic
status than the non-
Hispanic white population.
In addition, Hispanics
account for the lowest
population percentage
with health insurance. Yet
despite these two statistics,
the Hispanic population
somehow seems to outlive
the rest of America.
Upon evaluating the collected data, it
became evident that the U.S. Hispanic
population had the highest life expectancy
of any racial group. Hispanics were
defined as “persons of Cuban, Mexican,
Puerto Rican, South or Central American,
or other Spanish culture or origin.” The
study revealed average life expectancy for
the Hispanic population to be 80.6 years,
exceeding non-Hispanic whites’ by 2.5
years and non-Hispanic blacks’ by 7.7
years.
This data is both baffling and ostensibly
paradoxical. Hispanics, on average, have
lower socioeconomic status than the non-
Hispanic white population. In addition,
Hispanics have the least health insurance
out of all ethnic groups. Yet despite these
two statistics, the Hispanic population
somehow seems to outlive the rest of
America.
Although several theories have been
proposed to explain the results of this
study— including the presence of dynamic
family environments and decreased
smoking rates among Hispanics—no
definitive conclusion has been reached.
This study has been released at a
particularly apt time, and will hopefully
bring a new perspective to the public
discourse surrounding healthcare. For the
past two years the United States has been
5
channeling all its efforts into healthcare
reform. While this may contribute to
improved access to health insurance and
patient services throughout the country,
this access appears to be only one factor in
improving the well-being of the nation. A
new focus must be brought to the forefront.
Further examination of the social and
cultural environment in which all people
live is essential to uncovering these
hidden factors, perhaps beginning with
an investigation of how individuals with
lower socio-economic status compensate
for their lack of clinical care. In addition,
the U.S. government must begin to
implement social agendas that encourage
healthy living environments— whether that
includes educational improvement, family
counseling, transportation accessibility or
other programs outside of the traditional
clinical setting.
Although this epidemiological study
is imperfect, as many statistical analyses
often are, the results illuminate the need for
a broad and inclusive view on maintaining
health outside the hospital. Living through
one’s eighties is no longer simply a result
of doctor’s diagnoses and medication. It is
as much social as it is scientific.
—Alana Hauser is a freshman in the
College of Arts & Sciences. She can be
reached at alanahauser@wustl.edu.
6 National
Alex Kaufman’s
Hot/Not
Lisa Murkowski
In a bizarre story of an establishment
candidate using third party strategies to
undermine the established election system
and sneak back into the seat of power, the
incumbent from Alaska won back her
Senate seat as a write-in candidate. In an
election in which much of America voted to
oust the veterans for new blood, Murkowski
somehow parlayed her experience and
dedication to Alaska into a successful
“underdog incumbent” campaign.
Sarah Palin
The former vice presidential candidate
has a new reality TV show on TLC called
Sarah Palin’s Alaska. It’s nonpolitical, and,
if it goes well, it could help her image and
show that she would be a good presidential
candidate. If she does things that are silly
or offensive, well, odds are that they will
work out pretty well for her too.
George W. Bush
A new book and a sit-down with Matt
Lauer are helping to prop up the former
president’s shaky legacy. Bush defended
the Iraq war and says he would do it again
under the same circumstances. He also
refused to criticize either Palin or Obama,
confirming that after eight long years he’s
finally wised up.
John Boehner
After the elections, Boehner is in line to
be the Speaker of the House and now is the
most powerful Republican in the national
government—a.k.a. the guy who has to
take on Obama. At his acceptance speech,
he shed actual tears of joy as he reflected
on achieving the American dream. Upon
close analysis, they appeared to be genuine.
Clarence Thomas
Christine O’Donnell
Rand Paul
A campaign supporter stomps a woman
to the curb, and then defends his use of
force as an action meant to “protect” Paul.
As it turns out, the supporter worked for
the campaign as an event coordinator. He’s
been dismissed now, along with a big chunk
of Rand’s credibility.
Clarence and
Virginia Thomas
After refusing to disclose the names of
donors to his wife’s charity, Liberty Central
Inc., which came under fire for describing
Obama’s healthcare bill as unconstitutional,
you might think the Supreme Court justice
and his wife would try to keep a low profile.
Instead, Virginia Thomas called Anita Hill
(who in Thomas’ 1991 Supreme Court
confirmation hearings testified that Thomas
had sexually harassed her) asking Hill
to apologize to Thomas. A questionable
judgment, to say the least.
Christine
O’Donnell
Coming as no real shock, the Senate
candidate’s anti-evolution, anti-
masturbation policy didn’t go over well with
Delaware voters; she lost by 17 points. She
blamed her defeat on fellow Republicans,
like Dick Cheney, who refused to back her
campaign. Unsurprisingly, she will not be
running again.
Keith Olbermann
The MSNBC political commentator
made donations to Democratic candidates
in violation of MSNBC policy. He was
subsequently suspended for a whole week.
Few are surprised by the partisan donations,
but at least the guys at Fox News are smart
enough not to get into similar debacles.
Then again, after the ratings came in from
Olbermann’s comeback show, he quipped,
“Had I known that all this would happen, I
would have done this years ago!”
—Alex Kaufman is a sophomore in the
College of Arts & Sciences. He can be
reached at akaufman10@gmail.com.
National
Illustration by Amelia Fawcett
Politician Lunch-Goers
Beware: An Intrepid Intern’s
Election Education
Daniel Rubin
Now that the elections are over, a few
personal anecdotes—to illustrate just how
ludicrous American politics has become—
are in order. After securing a “research”
summer internship with the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee last
spring, I was excited. I assumed that I would
be spending the summer analyzing policies
pertinent to Senate elections. Opposition
research was not quite what I expected.
It got ugly out there. I don’t have firsthand
memories of the “Second Revolution” of
1800 or the Republican Revolution of 1994,
but the mudslinging throughout this past
election cycle was intense. I am less than
proud (although somewhat amused) to
have played my own small part.
In 2006 former Virginia Senator George
Allen (R) famously called Jim Webb’s
Indian-American campaign operative
“Macaca” and followed this epithet with
the even classier, “Welcome to America.”
Since this episode, “tracking” (or filming
politicians of the “enemy” party) has
7
become increasingly commonplace
during the campaign season. Democratic
Representative Bob Etheridge (NC-2) got a
taste of the new trend this past June when
a college-aged, conservative tracker asked
him if he supported the Obama agenda.
Etheridge responded by grabbing the
tracker by the neck. He ended up losing to
Renee Ellmers in their Congressional race.
Soon after this episode, yours truly was
Yours truly was tasked
with tracking Republican
Senate candidates around
Washington, presumably
doing such shady things as
eating lunch, or even getting
a drink with supporters.
These suspect activities were
all irrefutable evidence
of their ‘Washington
Insider’ status, an obvious
disqualification for high
political office.
tasked with tracking Republican Senate
candidates around Washington, who were
presumably doing such shady things as
eating lunch, or even getting a drink with
supporters. These suspect activities were all
irrefutable evidence of their “Washington
Insider” status, an obvious disqualification
for high political office.
My first assignment was to film Dan
Coats, former congressman, senator,
lobbyist, and genuine Washington insider,
lunching with lobbyists, all of whom (at
least on the Republican side) are part
of some corporate cabal that is ripping
elections out of the hands of the little man
(e.g. unions—see my astute journalistic
colleague Mr. Glenn Beck for more). Unlike
the Etheridge tracker, I was given specific
instructions not to engage the candidate. I
only had to film him coming or going from
the restaurant. Unluckily for me, I missed
Coats’ entrance and had to wait outside. I
can only speculate on what shifty things
must have happened inside: Cuban cigars,
brandy, and pot-bellied gun lobbyists with
8 National
southern drawls.
Waiting in the 90-plus-degree D.C. heat,
my perfectly coiffed hair and designer shirt
were drenched in sweat. Finally, defeated, I
went to get tacos from the hole-in-the-wall
place next door. After purchasing the tacos,
I saw him. The sneaky senator was exiting
a side porch, clearly trying to escape my
attempt to catch him in the act. I had to
react quickly.
My camera choice haunts me to this day.
A paparazzi rookie mistake. I had chosen
the cell-phone-sized Flip Cam to hide my
covert objective, à la James Bond. I could
feign texting and then bam, I’d whip it out
and film the candidate without warning.
Of course, in my brilliant planning, I had
not accounted for the Flip’s terrible zoom.
Consequently, I had to run up to within
10 or 12 feet of Coats. I then raised my
camera, took aim, and fired, capturing
damning evidence of him…walking on a
sidewalk, just as my handlers had hoped.
He stood in defeat and waved at me. His
companion muttered something to which
Coats responded, “Just doing his job.” I was
so embarrassed that I mouthed “Sorry” to
him.
Once I had the damning evidence
that would no doubt ruin this “insider’s”
political career, I scuttled back to the
office—or more accurately, to my un-
airconditioned, basement cubbyhole.
(Coats is now Indiana’s senator-elect.)
A few days later, I was told to report to
The Rise
and Fall of
Christine
O’Donnell
Michael Cohen
1990: “When you’re confronted
with such a reality of being so
wrong, it takes a while to accept
that. I started asking what else I
was wrong about. [It] awakened
the activist in me.”
In an October 2010 interview, O’Donnell
explains the epiphany she had about
abortion at age 21. After a friend showed
the Library of Congress for a hush-hush
assignment. I spent a lovely afternoon
looking through back issues of the
magazine published by World Wrestling
Entertainment, whose former first lady,
Linda McMahon, ran in (and lost)
Connecticut’s Senate race. My titillating
task was to find and photocopy images
of violence or scantily clad women.
Shockingly, such images were on every
page. Even more terrifying, they were
accompanied by the bright colored spandex
and mullets popular with 80’s wrestlers,
including my personal favorite, Rick Flair.
After filming Ron Johnson, a Tea Party
Senate candidate who unseated Wisconsin’s
Russ Feingold, this time bearing a superior
zooming handheld camera, I pressed my
What bothers me most is the
nagging feeling that these
methods may be necessary
to get the ‘right people’
elected.
boss on how this man, who possessed an
accent that suggested that he’d never been
out of his state, could possibly be a “DC
insider.” (As it turns out, he’d never even
visited Washington before the campaign,
and the man he was running against was
her pictures of the abortion process, she
transitioned overnight from a casual pro-
choice advocate to a passionate pro-lifer.
1996: “Masturbation is a selfish
act … The Bible says that lust
in your heart is committing
adultery, and you can’t
masturbate without lust!”
As the founder of the Savior’s Alliance
for Lifting the Truth, or the SALT,
O’Donnell helped produce a clip for
MTV’s “Sex in the 90’s,” during which she
denounced masturbation and lust. She
has complemented her anti-masturbation
position with crusades against
pornography and premarital sex.
1998: “You know what? Evolution
is a myth … Why aren’t monkeys
a three-term senator.) The response: He
isn’t raising money like a genuine outsider
would. To quote Doctor Evil, “Riiiight.”
I liked my supervisors, but how they
justified this work as legitimate political
critique mystifies me. To be fair, their desire
to engage in these goofy attacks is due to the
American people’s desire for, in the words
of There Will be Blood, this “milkshake.”
“They drink it up.” Given America’s appetite
for this theater, I can only imagine how
much fun 2012 will be. (Here’s to hoping
for Obama versus Palin.) For a self-styled
radical moderate, these campaign tactics,
which are admittedly used by both sides,
leave me cold. Yet they do seem to be
effective tools of persuasion. What bothers
me most is the nagging feeling that these
methods may be necessary to get the “right
people” elected. For things to change, a
more informed American public must
demand that the political conversation in
this country be raised from the low bars of
absurdity. While good for SNL, it tends to
make for lousy policy.
For now, this author has put away his
camera (Flip, handheld, or otherwise) and
will leave the door open for the next lowly
intern to hone his stalking skills on the DC
streets. Politician lunch-goers beware!
— Daniel Rubin is a junior in the College
of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at
dmrubin@wustl.edu.
still evolving into humans?”
During a 1998 episode of Bill
Maher’s “Politically Incorrect,”
O’Donnell, much to the satisfaction of
the audience, presented her controversial
opinions on evolution. As recently as this
year, O’Donnell has expressed her view
that creationism should be taught in U.S.
public schools.
1999: “I dabbled in witchcraft.
I never joined a coven. I hung
around people who were doing
these things … One of my first
dates was on a satanic altar and I
didn’t know it. There was a little
blood there or something like
that.”
Bill Maher’s show has become a gold
Continued on next page
National
Midterm Winners and Losers
Gavin Frisch
The midterm elections are finally over.
Republicans picked up more than 60 seats
in the House, 6 seats in the Senate, and a
handful of governorships. But is it right to
say that they were the big winners in the
midterm elections? Here is a look at the
winners and losers from the 2010 elections.
Winner: John Boehner
John Boehner, the current Minority
Leader in the House of Representatives,
is in line to become the next Speaker of
the House. He has been very successful at
organizing the rest of his party members
to follow the Republican agenda, given
that he frequently rallies 100% of House
Republicans to oppose Democrat-backed
legislation. Now, Boehner seems poised
to offer Republican legislative alternatives,
and will have much more success voting
down Obama’s liberal policies. The future
looks bright for Boehner; he just can’t afford
to make the same mistakes that House
Republicans made after the 1994 elections.
Winner: The American People
Yes, the American people are clearly
winners as a result of the midterm elections.
With Republicans taking over the House,
there is now bipartisanship in Congress.
For legislation to be passed, the Obama
mine for Christine O’Donnell quotes.
During this 1999 episode of “Politically
Incorrect,” O’Donnell planted the seed for
the most famous characterization of her.
Had O’Donnell not shared her anecdote,
the American people would probably be
left without the instant classic “I’m not a
witch” campaign ad.
2005: “Moreover, Miss
O’Donnell has lost the increased
earning power that a Master’s
degree from Princeton would
have created. In the future,
with proper finances, Miss
O’Donnell should probably be
able to return and complete
that program, however that
increased earning power has
been disrupted and delayed
A bipartisan government
will encourage compromise
and promote new and
different ideas.
administration and Republicans will have
to work together. A bipartisan government
will encourage compromise and promote
new and different ideas about how to fix
the economy, Social Security, and other
programs. Although significant economic
improvement in the near future seems
unlikely, things can’t really get much worse
anyway.
Draw: Both Political Parties
It’s hard to believe that the Republicans
aren’t winners and the Democrats aren’t
losers, but there are many reasons why
neither party won or lost the election.
First, many of the seats Republicans picked
up were in fairly conservative districts.
These were seats that Republicans lost in
2006 and 2008, allowing the Democrats
to strengthen their majority in Congress.
Even though the Republicans won six seats
in the Senate, they should have been able
for at least three years, given
college application cycles, and
the damage to her reputation,
creating a loss of increased
earning power estimated at
up to $50,000 per year, for
three lost years at $150,000.”
–O’Donnell’s lawyer
In a gender discrimination complaint,
O’Donnell criticized her employer (the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute, or
ISI) for not letting her take Princeton
graduate classes, among other accusations.
This seemed odd to ISI, considering
that Princeton had made it clear that
O’Donnell was never admitted to any
graduate program. An amended version of
this complaint suspiciously appeared two
months later.
9
to take Nevada, Colorado, and Delaware
if they had nominated better candidates.
These nominations were a godsend for
Democrats, who otherwise might have
lost the Senate and even more seats in the
House. Considering what could have been,
neither party ought to be dubbed winners
or losers.
Loser: Sarah Palin
Over the past few months, Sarah Palin was
whirl-wind on the campaign trail, stumping
far and wide for her “Mama Grizzlies”
and Tea Party candidates. Although more
than half of the candidates Palin endorsed
won, her endorsements ended up hurting
some big name candidates. In her home
state of Alaska, Tea Party candidate Joe
Miller lost to Republican Lisa Murkowski.
In Colorado, Ken Buck narrowly lost
to incumbent Michael Bennet, while in
Nevada, Sharron Angle lost to the very
unpopular Harry Reid. The failures of the
Tea Party will hurt Sarah Palin’s credibility
and influence. Hopefully, her political
influence will diminish enough to prevent
her from seeking the GOP presidential
nomination in 2012.
—Gavin Frisch is a sophomore in the Olin
School of Business. He can be reached at
gsfrisch@wustl.edu.
2007: “American scientific
companies are cross-breeding
humans and animals and
coming up with mice with fully-
functioning human brains.”
Even on the highly conservative “Bill
O’Reilly Show,” O’Donnell wasn’t backed
up on this outrageous accusation. O’Reilly
did his best to avoid the absurdity of what
O’Donnell had said for the duration of the
segment.
2008: “Many of the past
campaign debts were from
invoices that were not approved.
We’re in the process of
processing the legitimate ones.”
To pay off the debt from her 2008 Senate
campaign, O’Donnell used some of the
money she raised in 2010. The Federal
10
As We Wait for Superman
Eve Herold
The recent release of the documentary
“Waiting for Superman” has brought
an often overshadowed topic to light:
education. The documentary features,
among other things, the story of Geoffrey
Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s
Zone, a nonprofit organization that
helps impoverished students. While the
documentary has sparked discussion about
education reform, the issue has yet to be
appropriately addressed by subsequent
legislation. Indeed, amidst the midterm
election frenzy, economic hardships, and
concerns about the country’s political future,
the state of the country’s education system is
easily overlooked.
Ignoring the problems in our education
system could prove to be far more detrimental
to our future than many would imagine.
According to Waiting for Superman, the
United States ranks 25th in math, and 21st
in science among 30 developed countries. If
the United States continues to perform this
poorly, other developed nations will easily
overtake the United States in productivity.
The question that arises asks how we can
overlook an issue that so obviously affects
our nation’s future. If we fail to fix the
problems in the education system, there is
little chance that our country could recover
from the hardships the future may hold.
Elections Commission has on numerous
occasions cited O’Donnell for financial
misconduct. She has also been accused
of using campaign funds for her own
personal use—mainly paying her rent.
9/14/2010: “The people of
Delaware have spoken … no
more politics as usual.”
At the high point of O’Donnell’s political
career, she thanked the Republicans of
Delaware for making her their candidate.
Unfortunately for her, they represented
only the Republicans and not the general
population.
10/4/2010: “I’m not a witch. I’m
nothing you’ve heard. I’m you.”
In the trademark quote of the campaign,
O’Donnell quickly became the centerpiece
In 2002, President Bush signed the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which
required states to implement assessments to
test a range of academic skills. Unfortunately,
NCLB merely prompted many schools to
teach students for the test, and, therefore,
failed to offer much in the way of actual
educational benefits. Recently, President
Obama has used stimulus money to prevent
If we fail to fix the problems
in the education system,
there is little chance that our
country could recover...
lay-offs for teachers, encouraged states to
focus on improving education, and opened
discussion about improving teaching
standards. Nicholas Kristof, a columnist
for The New York Times, recently wrote,
“Improving America’s inner-city schools
will be a long slog, but Mr. Obama has done
far more than any other president in this
area— arguably our single greatest national
challenge.” But while Obama has started to
implement changes, there is still a long way
to go.
In order to fix our failing schools, we
of American political humor, virtually
guaranteeing her loss in November.
Luckily for other Tea Party candidates, her
unintentional comedy did not shed a bad
light on the political movement as a whole.
10/28/10: “I don’t think I’d heard
the word ‘cougar’ yet at that
point, but that’s probably what
I’d call her.” –Anonymous
Just days before the election, an
anonymous 25-year-old man wrote an
article about a “one-night stand” he’d had
with O’Donnell in 2007. He discusses
O’Donnell seducing him and then her
claiming that she was a virgin and that
“she was planning on staying [a virgin]
that night.” He says he later learned that
she was a “born-again virgin.” O’Donnell
was already well behind in the polls when
National
should not simply think of education as
learning math, science, or reading. Rather,
school systems should aim to improve the
overall quality of life for children. If a school
offers resources and support outside the
classroom, students are more likely to be in
class than on the streets. Thus, reforming
education must include both school and
community reform. Having worked in
a program affiliated with the Harlem
Children’s Zone (HCZ), I have witnessed
firsthand the success of this grassroots
organization. When tackling such a daunting
issue, the best results come from those in
the community itself. At organizations like
the HCZ, the employees and the students
are often from the same area. The help
that employees offer outside the classroom
for children and their families results in
an overall community transformation. It
is through encouraging and expanding
programs that support holistic changes in
students’ lives that we can expect future
improvement in education. Canada says in
Waiting for Superman, “Either our kids are
getting stupider every year or something is
wrong in the education system.” I think the
answer is pretty obvious.
—Eve Herold is a sophomore in the College
of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at
eherold822@gmail.com.
the article was published. However, the
near one-night stand obviously didn’t help
her on election day.
11/5/2010: “That sounds like
bruised egos.”
In an interview on “Today” three days after
the election, O’Donnell blamed her loss
on the pride of establishment Republicans
such as Karl Rove and Mike Castle (the
candidate she beat in the primary), who
did not rally behind her. Judging by the
Tea Party victories all across the nation,
her assessment could be entirely accurate.
See you in 2012, Christine!
— Michael Cohen is a freshman in the Olin
School of Business. He can be reached at
cohenmj@wustl.edu
National
Campaign Finance at a
Crossroads
Nicolas Hinsch
The recent midterm elections not only
opened a new era of divided government,
but represented a critical tipping point
toward unlimited political spending by
moneyed interest groups. According
to the Center for Responsive Politics,
outside groups spent $37 million in an
attempt to influence voters in the 2006
midterms that brought Nancy Pelosi and
the Democratic Party to power. Just four
years later, outside spending has surged
fivefold to $205 million.
Underlying the recent developments
in campaign finance is the landmark
Supreme Court case Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission. In
this controversial 5-4 decision handed
down this January, conservative justices
overturned long-standing precedents,
clearing the way for corporations
and labor unions to make unlimited
expenditures for the express purpose
of supporting or defeating particular
candidates.
The most significant immediate
consequence of the Citizens United
decision has been the rise of a new breed
of Political Action Committee (PAC),
known colloquially as the “Super PAC.”
PACs are entities created by advocacy
groups, unions, and corporations
The deregulation of
campaign finance will
unleash a rush of legalized
corruption that cuts across
the political divide.
11
that funnel political contributions to
candidates who support the interests of
the particular group. Traditional PACS
may only accept $5,000 from each
donor, but Super PACs do not face any
limit. The only disadvantage of a Super
PAC is that it may not donate directly
to, or coordinate its spending with, a
candidate’s campaign. A Super PAC may
only spend on behalf of a candidate.
Nobody has better reaped the fruits
of the new campaign finance landscape
than former Bush confidante Karl Rove.
He currently serves as a well-connected
advisor to American Crossroads, an
influential new Super PAC dedicated
to “renewing America’s commitment to
individual liberty, limited government,
free enterprise and a strong national
defense,” or, in laymen’s terms, electing
members of the Republican Party.
American Crossroads has collected
tens of millions of dollars in donations
from numerous corporations and
high net-worth individuals, including
homebuilder Bob Perry and businessman
Robert Rowling, both of whom were
12
major donors to George W. Bush.
The same team behind American
Crossroads has created a second group,
Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies
(GPS). Not only do the two groups share
similar names, they share space in the
same office building. However, there is
a critical distinction between American
Crossroads and Crossroads GPS: the
latter is incorporated under section
501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code,
which categorizes it as a tax-exempt
non-profit organization. While such
organizations are expected to emphasize
issues over candidates in their political
advocacy, a lack of oversight by the IRS
and political paralysis in the FEC have
allowed them to skirt this limitation.
Unlike Super PACs, 501(c) organizations
are not required to disclose their
contributors, giving donors the political
cover to hide controversial contributions
from the public.
It is important to keep outside
spending by Republican-friendly
groups in perspective. While outside
groups have traditionally favored
Republicans, Democratic candidates
and committees enjoy substantial cash
Nobody has better reaped
the fruits of the post-
Citizens United campaign
finance landscape than
former Bush confidante Karl
Rove.
National
advantages from direct donations, not
to mention enormous support from labor
unions. These factors have allowed the
Democratic Party to match the financial
resources of the Republican Party, at
least thus far.
Rather than creating a scenario
in which one party can consistently
outspend the other, the deregulation of
campaign finance will unleash a rush of
legalized corruption that cuts across the
political divide. Candidates will be more
beholden to special interest backers, be
they labor unions, financial services
corporations, or advocacy groups
because lobbyists can now threaten to
spend millions of dollars in opposition
to a candidate if he votes against the
interests of a client. In addition, voters
will be continuously bombarded with
misleading political advertising, which
will make informed and rational public
debate impossible. In fact, American
Crossroads is already planning a
campaign against President Obama in
2012. Their campaign will likely run
negative advertisements over a year in
advance of the election, in order to batter
President Obama before his opponent is
even nominated.
Polls consistently show that voters
believe that money plays too great a
role in politics and that they dislike
negative advertising. However, there
is no easy or obvious solution to the
campaign finance controversy that is
politically and legally viable. The First
Amendment precludes the solution that
has served the United Kingdom well—
namely a complete ban on televised
political advertising. And the current
Supreme Court is unlikely to rule in
favor of other restrictions on corporate
political spending since it just classified
such spending as protected speech. The
most promising way forward involves
greater and more transparent disclosure
of donations. In the meantime, the
curtains are already beginning to rise on
what promises to be the most expensive
American political campaign of all time:
the first Presidential election of the post-
Citizens United era.
— Nicolas Hinsch is a freshman in the
College of Arts & Sciences. He can be
reached at nhinsch@wustl.edu.
National
Interview:
Charles Burson
Daniel Rubin
WUPR recently sat down with Charles
Burson, former Tennessee Attorney General
and Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore.
Mr. Burson is currently the Senior Professor
of Practice at Washington University’s Law
School. Here are some highlights from the
interview.
WUPR: Could you give our readers a quick
idea of your history and involvement in
politics?
Burson: It really starts beyond me. It starts
with my family… They were very involved
in Tennessee politics… My father in
particular was active in trying to break the
machine politics of Memphis… My mother
became the second woman cabinet member
in Tennessee history under a governor
named Beauford Ellington, back in ’66. So I
was kind of brought up in politics…
Then [Al Gore] ran for President in ’88, and
I ran all over the country for him... We had
hope after Super Tuesday in 1988, but we
Charles Burson was Al Gore’s Chief of Staff
were out of money, and the race had kind
of polarized between Jesse Jackson and
Dukakis, so we couldn’t break through…
One day [after serving as Tennessee
Attorney General] I got a call from Vice
President Gore…and he asked me if I
wanted to come to Washington to be his
counselor… I started off as Al’s counsel and
then became his Chief of Staff for the last
two years.
WUPR: We had an election last week that
everyone is comparing to 1994. What do
you think the effect of the election will be
on the big-ticket policy items, specifically
the Bush tax cuts?
Burson: I think we will see some action
on the tax cuts. I think there will be some
extension of everything. Another possible
compromise is for Obama to move up
from $250,000 to $500,000. He’s been so
adamant, though, against a permanent
[extension] that it’s hard for him to back
13
down off of that… There will be a lot of
playing around, but I think the end result
will be some extension for two or three
years. Then you get the politics. When do
the Republicans want it to come up again?
Probably right before the election, but the
Democrats won’t.
WUPR: Does Obama need someone like
Dick Morris on his staff to bring him back
to the center?
Burson: When you’re on the outside all
you can do is speculate about what’s going
on. I am confident that he is getting every
point of view presented to him… In the end
it comes down to the decision made by the
President… All the speculation about what
role different aides have played is just that,
speculation. And, I’ve got to tell you, the
buck stops at the big desk.
WUPR: Do you think Obama wants to shift
to the center? Is he more ideological then
Bill Clinton, who people have said loved
deal-making and pragmatism?
Burson: I think he is basically a centrist
person… I know people didn’t think that
when he got elected and the hopes were,
quite frankly, that he would have a bold
14
agenda, but that is not his history.
WUPR: The theme of our next issue is
“Broken Promises.” Do you think Obama
promised too much in the election, and has
this created some ambivalence toward him
from the base?
Burson: I think he’s gotten a bit of a bum
rap. He got the exact healthcare proposal
that he was talking about during the
election with one exception. That’s created
the disappointment, and that’s the public
option… We are headed out of Iraq. This
was a big deal during the election. He said
we were going to pull out of Iraq, and he
said, “I am going to put more focus on
Afghanistan.” He has lived up to that…
Then we had the financial collapse. I
really question whether he and his team
ever really adjusted or recalibrated what
they wanted to do with the presidency to
that fundamental change in the American
economy. It was something that was getting
in the way of the agenda that he wanted to
pursue. So they turned away from it as soon
as they could patch it up and put it aside
and said, “We’ll move on.”
WUPR: Do you have any funny stories
from your White House days that you can
share?
Burson: Well, yeah, I’ve got a lot of them,
but I don’t know how many I’ll share with
you though…
Gore did an infamous press conference.
Bob Woodward had written an article on
his fund-raising efforts in 1996. Everyone
started asking, “Did he raise this money
from his West Wing office?” It was an
issue of whether he had violated the
Hatch Act or not… This was really his
first press conference in the presidential
pressroom…I had only been there two
weeks and he asked me, “What’s your best
take on this?”… I didn’t know all the facts.
Nobody really knew all the facts, so I was
concerned with getting out there too far, so
I gave him the phrase, “I think we go with
‘No controlling legal authority’ in terms
of the appropriateness of these telephone
calls.”… As we were leaving to go to the
press conference I heard Rahm [Emanuel]
say, “This is going to be a disaster. He’s just
too legalistic.”… So about two minutes into
the press conference I realized how he had
taken my advice. He had already used the
phrase “no controlling legal authority,” and
then he says, “My counsel Charles Burson,”
and he points to me over here, “advises me
that there is no controlling legal authority.”
Well, meanwhile, as he’s doing that the
cameras are coming over [to me], and I am
just freaking out… Well, I had told my wife,
and the Attorney General’s Office before
I left, “If you see me on TV it’s not good.”
At that moment, my wife was working
at Vanderbilt, and someone said, “Your
husband’s on TV”… He used the phrase
probably nine times in a fifteen-minute
interview, and that became the iconic
phrase with which Gore had confronted this
issue… That afternoon everything played
OK. The next morning the Republican
machine got going, and they ripped him on
“no controlling legal authority.”
WUPR: You were there doing the Lewinsky
Scandal. What was the atmosphere like?
Burson: It was tough. The atmosphere
really changed, particularly from our
perspective. The Vice President’s staff and
the President’s staff had really been very well
integrated… Once the Monica issue began
to develop they were putting a lot of time
into that, and there were a lot of meetings
National
that we couldn’t be a part of. That began to
create some separation. Then the campaign
started, and you had these tensions
between the presidential prerogatives and
the candidate’s prerogatives. That further
increased the separation.
WUPR: Is there a particular moment that
you treasure the most from your time there?
Burson: Well, probably the moment
I treasure the most was when the Vice
President and I went down to Tucson
for the Fiesta Bowl, which was the first
BCS National Championship, and it was
between Tennessee and Florida State.
In our suite it was Vice President Gore,
Senator Fred Thompson, Howard Baker,
Senator Frist. Just sitting in there with these
guys and listening to them jockey back and
forth about the game, not about politics,
was fascinating… That was probably the
most fun experience…
Probably the highest moment I had was
on election night when the networks said
Florida had gone for Gore. One of the
lowest moments I had was when they said
Florida had not gone for Gore.
WUPR: That was actually my last question.
Could you comment on what it was like
being there during that time?
Burson: It was like a feeling I’d never felt,
being such a yo-yo… It went from day-
to-day. I would gauge how we were doing
by what West Wingers came over [to my
office]. If it looked good, then they were
in the office; and, if it looked bad, then
nobody was around. So the high moment
was when the Florida Supreme Court, on
a Friday afternoon, said they were going to
have a statewide recount. It looked like a
big victory for Gore… We were in my office
doing a little celebration, and then Saturday
morning, at about 11 o’clock or so, the court
stops the recount. So again, high moment,
low moment, and it was kind of like that
through the whole process.
WUPR: Well, I think that’s all the questions
we have for you. Thank you very much.
— Daniel Rubin is a junior in the College
of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at
dmrubin@wustl.edu.
 National 15

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16 National

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at atluskin@wustl.edu
National
Illustration by Christine Stavridis
Redefinition and Rhetoric
Will Dobbs-Allsopp
Did you know that President Obama is
the 21st century manifestation of Adolf
Hitler, hell-bent on euthanizing grandma
via death panel? And did you know that the
Tea Party is the fruit of a decades-old Koch
brothers’ plot to usurp reason with untruth
in an effort to shroud shady investments
and morally ambiguous transactions
behind chaos’ misty veil?
Incredibly, statements like these are
commonplace in the American media. If the
last few years have taught us anything, it has
been to expect hyperbole and deceit from
politicians and pundits alike. And while the
majority of Americans may recognize the
absurdity and hostility of most exaggerated
declarations, there remains a more subtle
peril. Overstatements jade and desensitize
us, creating space in our vocabulary for
less obtrusive, but nonetheless inaccurate,
phrases: we despise the death tax, ridicule
Obamacare, belittle the Ivy League Elite,
and chastise Mama Grizzlies.
Take a minute and consider some of
this rhetoric. Obamacare is not Obama’s
brainchild; in fact, numerous components
are Republican proposals from only a few
years ago. Who are the Ivy League Elite? If
they are simply some of the most intelligent
young adults in the country, I wouldn’t
mind letting them run Washington. Or
does the label apply to liberal politicians
out of touch with your values? If so, this
has less to do with graduating cum laude
from Yale and more to do with drinking
the Washington Kool-Aid—a flaw that cuts
across political parties.
Sometimes people don’t even bother
inventing new phrases; they simply
bastardize old ones. “Progressives” do not
17
seek the obliteration of family values or the
conversion of your children to Scientology.
The word actually means “one who seeks
progress or betterment,” which is hardly a
contentious aim. Likewise “conservative”
does not mean backwards, egotistical, or that
you live in a log cabin in the Adirondacks
with your wife, who also happens to be
your cousin. Such associations stemming
from redefinition shift focus away from the
issues on which we agree and emphasize
the ones on which we don’t.
The ultimate example is the casual
manner in which people redefine the word
“American.” The Tea Party wants to reclaim
American values, and during a campaign
rally on December 16, 2008, Sarah Palin
told a crowd she “believe[s] that the best
of America is in these small towns that we
get to visit, and in these wonderful little
pockets of what I call the real America.”
The Real America? Do small towns satisfy
the most conditions on some checklist of
what constitutes being American? Implicit
in such assertions is this concept of being
“un-American.” When my younger brother
used to complain that he didn’t like peanut
butter, my dad jokingly called him un-
American; but we are not eight years old,
and politics is not a joke. There is no Joe
the Plumber or Johnny Appleseed who
embodies the real America—to suggest
otherwise is not only disingenuous, but
irresponsible and divisive.
Our fetish for extreme language divides
us because Crazed Republicans don’t have
much reason to associate with Liberal
Scum. This predilection understandably
frustrates the moderate segments of our
population and leaves the public sphere at
the mercy of the radical left and right. But
this is no Cold War. We need not huddle
under our kitchen tables and wait for a
rhetorical Armageddon to obliterate us. We
should instead demand specific, substantive
response from politicians in place of
political opera, forcing public figures to
abandon fanciful language. Maybe then
our candidates will stop trying to reassure
us that they are not, in fact, witches, and
instead start discussing how to find jobs for
the nearly 10 % of Americans out of work.
And, maybe then, we will remember that
we are all Americans.
— Will Dobbs-Allsopp is a freshman in
the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be
reached at w.dobbs-allsopp@wustl.edu.
Promises Kept
Promises Broken
It might have to do with the elections. It could be the fault of the twenty-four hour news cycle. Or, maybe,
it’s simply a function of how things work. Whatever the case, promises are the stuff of politics.

Imagine, if you can, an instance in which politics was devoid of promises—no predictions of change,
no suggestions of how things might be improved and, needless to say, no lofty claims as to what will be
accomplished. Presumably, such a situation could exist. Realistically, however, it almost certainly never
will.

The nation now sits at what might be thought of as a crossroads of promise. As the country’s political
machinery revs up for 2012, Obama’s 2008 campaign claims are falling under increased scrutiny. The
resurgent right has made its “Pledge to America.” Public figures near and far have guaranteed to turn the
country around. Will any of these promises be kept? Will it matter?
Political Promises
The Only Thing Changing is
the Climate
Jake Lichtenfeld
In September 2008, presidential
candidate Barack Obama was asked what
his number one legislative goal would be
if elected to office. Without hesitation,
he responded, “Energy we have to deal
with today … we’ve got to deal with that
right away … health care is priority two.”
Two election cycles have passed since that
assertion, but an energy overhaul seems
to be nowhere in sight. Did the Obama
administration miss its only chance at
developing a comprehensive energy policy?
President Obama, unlike former
presidents, deferred much of his legislative
agenda directly to Congress. His early
strategy was to introduce legislative topics
and then allow the 111th Congress to
formally draft the bills. This enabled the
House Energy and Commerce Committee,
chaired by liberal Representative Henry
Waxman, to write a new energy policy for
the United States. Waxman successfully
wrote a cap-and-trade bill that would reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 80% of 2005
emissions levels by 2050. Waxman’s bill also
proposed over $800 billion in investments
for clean energy technology. The bill passed
the House of Representatives by a margin
of 219-212. House Democrats considered
the cap-and-trade legislation a formidable
achievement, but it received criticism from
both liberals and conservatives. Liberals
accused the legislation of not going far
enough to combat global warming while
conservatives asserted that the “cap-and-
tax” bill would simply raise taxes during the
recession to combat the “myth” of climate
change.
Just days after the bill passed, Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid chose to
19
abandon it in order to allow the Senate to
create its own legislation regarding climate
change. Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe
Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-
SC) were to lead the charge. Meanwhile, the
process of developing an energy solution
was delayed as Senate Democrats devoted
their complete attention to passing a health
care reform bill by any means necessary.
Months later, Kerry, Lieberman and
Graham were just weeks away from
unveiling a carefully crafted bipartisan
bill. This bill emphasized achieving energy
independence by expanding offshore
drilling and nuclear power, but also included
provisions for significantly reducing
emissions through carbon capture and
sequestration as well as research into new
technologies such as solar and wind power.
After a series of events including Reid’s
interest in pursuing immigration reform
Liberals accused the
legislation of not going
far enough to combat
global warming while
conservatives asserted that
the “cap-and-tax” bill would
simply raise taxes during
the recession to combat the
“myth” of climate change.
over energy reform and the Deepwater
Horizon explosion (otherwise known as
the BP oil spill), Graham pulled his support
for the legislation and the bill was all but
destroyed. Kerry and Lieberman unveiled
the bill despite Graham’s withdrawal, but
the bill received little attention as midterm
elections approached.
Some progress was made in those first
two years: clean energy advocates received
some relief through programs such as Cash
for Clunkers and the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the largest
investment in clean energy in U.S. history.
Although ARRA provided significant
investments in the clean energy sector, it
didn’t do nearly as much to revolutionize
the economy as the president had promised.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the
Republicans took control of the House of
Representatives by a significant margin
20
and closed the gap in the Senate. Two
days after the Republican Party clinched
the House, future Speaker of the House
John Boehner gave an interview with ABC
News. Regarding climate change, Boehner
maintained that “…the idea that carbon
dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to
our environment is almost comical. Every
time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide.
Every cow in the world, you know, when
they do what they do, you’ve got more
carbon dioxide.”
John Boehner’s somewhat confused
denial of climate change will surely only be
reinforced by the newly elected Tea Party
members of the 112th Congress. In the
House of Representatives alone, over 40 Tea
Party candidates have been elected to serve
in the upcoming Congress. Among these is
Tea Party favorite Mick Mulvaney of South
Carolina, whose campaign site states, “…
we shouldn’t seek to accomplish [energy
independence] by taxing people based on
questionable science. Neither should we
ignore domestic energy resources—coal,
natural gas, oil—because of baseless claims
regarding global warming.” It appears that
climate change legislation will meet stiff
resistance going forward.
Activists have asserted that by using the
Environment Protection Agency (EPA),
there could be an alternative for addressing
energy policy without the consent of
Congress. The EPA, as an executive
authority, has the ability to regulate carbon
emissions and efficiency standards. EPA’s
regulatory power may not be as strong as
that of the Waxman-Markey bill, but at least
Obama would be able to address energy
issues. Given that it could be interpreted
as an abuse of executive power, however,
many consider an aggressive pursuit of this
option unlikely.
Overall, the 111th Congress was the
best opportunity that Democrats have
ever had at energy overhaul. The chance
of revolutionizing energy policy crumbled
when the Democrats lost the House. Now,
Tea Party member Norman Dennison
of Indiana best summarizes Congress’
disposition towards changing the system:
“[Climate change] is a flat out lie. I read my
Bible. He made this earth for us to utilize.”
— Jake Lichtenfeld is a freshman in the
College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached
at j.lichtenfeld@wustl.edu
Not Yet
Broken:
Tea Party
Promises
and Turning
the Country
Around
Nick Wilbar
An emerging popular star she has been.
A political force to be reckoned with she
may become. A particularly astute observer
of the world, however, she is not. And, yet,
Mrs. Palin is unapologetic in broadcasting
her thoughts—and convictions—to the
wider world. “You didn’t retreat,” she said
at a Tea Party event in late October, “and
you turned this country around.” Perhaps
she’s right. Maybe the nation’s newly elected
Tea Partiers will, in fact, re-route America’s
dizzying descent into fiscal and social chaos.
Or, maybe, they won’t. In either case, for
a Sarah Palin-type figure to make that sort
of claim—at that particular, pre-election
juncture—requires that she work from
assumptions. Hers was merely an airing
of what she anticipated might happen.
Palin’s predications, however, were far from
baseless.
Since what feels like time immemorial,
Tea Party backed candidates have been
promising a set of changes that they would
enact if put in charge. Now that many of
those individuals that not only sip, but also
serve, the tea have been elected, the question
necessarily becomes this: if the broader set
of Tea Party promises come true, will Sarah
Palin’s? If the Tea Party makes good on its
platform, will it “turn this country around?”
Frankly, it seems unlikely.
Nix the Earmarks and
Balance the Budget?
Much fuss has been afforded to the
notorious appropriations disparagingly
referred to as “earmarks.” While Slate’s
Daniel Engber once noted that “no one can
Political Promises
Illustration by Stephanie Trimboli
agree on the precise definition,” earmarks
are typically understood to be specific, small
expenditures embedded in larger bills, often
only focusing on a legislator’s home state
or constituency. Regardless of what they
actually are, Tea Party candidates turned the
world of Congressional earmarking into a
midterm theater of war.
Starting way back in the winter of 2010,
Rand Paul’s official campaign website touted
that the Senator to-be had incorporated
anti-earmark-ism as a focal point “of his
campaign for limited government.” In the
same vein, Marco Rubio lamented that
“powerful legislators are able to secure
millions and millions of dollars for their
home districts at the expense of the rest of
the country.” Not to be outdone, Senator
Jim DeMint, a driver of the Tea Party
bandwagon, has long decried earmarks,
recently claiming that “Americans want
Congress to shut down the earmark favor
factory, and… I believe House and Senate
Republicans will unite to stop pork barrel
spending.”
The problem with all of this, of course,
is that it’s largely irrelevant. Simply put,
earmarks have an infinitesimal impact
on federal spending—particularly when
framed in the context of “turning this
country around.” Weighing in at roughly
one-percent of the government’s annual
budget, earmarks—if banned—would serve
as little more than a symbolic sacrifice.
Political Promises
Moreover, it’s roundly presumed that were
Congress to flatly eliminate the power of
pork, the executive branch would simply
pick it up. The road by which the country will
be put back on a more fiscally responsible
path appears to lie elsewhere.
Repeal Healthcare.
And Replace it?
Across the political spectrum, healthcare
reform has offered ample reason to
squirm. Given the unseemliness through
which it was pulled off—and the now-
cliché meatpacking metaphor still
seems to apply—it makes sense that the
anti-establishment crowd would rouse
something of an ado with regards to this
particular piece of legislation. Those
harboring Tea Party sympathies have been
direct in their intention to repeal Obama’s
healthcare package. And, insomuch as the
law itself is flawed, that’s legitimate—but
only if an alternative is offered.
Shocking though it may sound, the
world prior to Obamacare was a less than
perfect place. The economy had tanked.
The wars were active and unpopular. Two
parent homes continued to be on the wane.
America as Eden simply did not exist; and,
no doubt, Tea Partiers far and wide would
have held this to be not only true, but
obviously so.
The American ship of state—including
the nation’s healthcare system—was
taking on water back when Obama had
nothing more than a Senate vote. Again,
with that in mind, repealing healthcare is
House Minority Leader John Boehner
Now that many of those
individuals that not only sip,
but also serve, the tea have
been elected, the question
necessarily becomes this…
if the Tea Party makes good
on its platform, will it “turn
this country around?
fine, perhaps even necessary, but far from
sufficient. The country was coming undone
well before Obama worked his first shift
in the Oval Office. Thus, merely repealing
healthcare—and restoring America to its
level of “prosperity” circa 2008—seems to
fall somewhat short of fully “turning this
country around.”
Drain the Swamp
The much ballyhooed “Pledge to
America” was nothing if not vague. While
bubbling over with talking points and
radio-show fodder, filled with substantive
policy proposals it was not.
Squeezed between a less-than-stirring
montage of Americana, the “Pledge” only
interrupted its lock-step ambiguity on a
few points—most of which, interestingly
enough, dealt with Congressional
corruption. Fix the swamp, the logic held,
and the rest of the country should follow.
Among the pamphlet’s more fascinating
21
ideas was the notion that Congress ought
to cite “specific constitutional authority”
for each bill that it passes. As worthy of
a document as it has proven to be, the
Constitution acts as a natural pandering
point for United States politics writ large.
That the resurgent Republicans might
be inclined to go this route, therefore,
comes as no real surprise. This, however,
may have been a mistake. In not-quite-
confusing ways, the “Pledge to America”
plainly includes provisions that land wholly
outside the purview of the nation’s founding
literature. Nowhere, presumably, does
the Constitution suggest that the federal
government should “eliminate annual
and lifetime spending caps, and prevent
insurers from dropping your coverage
just because you get sick,” or “incentivize
states to develop innovative programs that
lower premiums and reduce the number of
uninsured Americans.” Clearly, the Pledgers
themselves didn’t intend to handle this
particular promise all that earnestly; and,
ironically, it’s probably better that way.
When it comes down to it, the Courts,
in tandem with the media, are tasked
with policing the constitutionality of laws.
Thus, this piece of the “Pledge” is already
incorporated into the system as it presently
functions. Keeping as much in mind,
forcing legislators to waste time—ultimately
a taxpayer resource—putting together
constitutional citations would run counter
to the general gist of the Tea Party mantra.
So while Congressional corruption should
be addressed, it seems that this particular
promise won’t do much to keep the Union
from falling asunder.
And even while the promises continued
to ring, the campaign cycle eventually
wound down. The elections came and went,
and the Republicans won. The Democrats
were, to use the day’s vernacular, shellacked.
Returning to Mrs. Palin’s pre-election
pep talk, the Tea Party—sometimes to the
determent of the Republican Party—didn’t
back down. The candidates that Palin
herself endorsed easily amassed a winning
record, and, in the process, were given
the opportunity to keep their campaign
promises. Whether or not they will, and
whether it will help “turn around” the
country, however, is anyone’s guess.
— Nick Wilbar is a senior in the College of
Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at nick.
wilbar@gmail.com
22
Bravest Woman in Mexico,
Toughest Job in the World
Molly McGregor
Imagine that you are a 20-year-old
college student, studying criminology and
a new mother. You have also just accepted
a position as the chief of police in one of
the most violent municipalities in Mexico,
ravaged by the war on drugs. Such is the
case for Marisol Valles Garcia, who became
the new police chief of Praxedis Guadalupe
Guerrero on October 20, 2010.
Located in the state of Chihuahua and
bordering Texas, this municipality has
experienced some of the worst violence
from Mexico’s war on drugs. Since
thousands of citizens have fled the violence
or been killed, many towns in Chihuahua
are like ghost towns, lacking any sort
of local police presence. The infamous
Ciudad Juarez is located only 35 miles from
Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero and has seen
2,500 people killed in drug-related violence
just this year. In these places, a title such
as police chief is often tantamount to a
death sentence. In fact, the position Garcia
accepted last month had been vacant since
last July, when the previous chief of police
was murdered. Since then, she has been the
only person to accept the job. Tired of the
constant fear, Garcia explains, “I am taking
the risk because I want my son to live in a
different community than the one we have
today.” As a result, it is no small surprise
that some in the Mexican media are hailing
her as “the bravest woman in Mexico.”
Though her decision is certainly
courageous, many are attacking Garcia
as being incredibly naïve, citing her utter
She has been the only person
to accept the job … it is no
small surprise some in the
Mexican media are hailing
her as “the bravest woman
in Mexico.”
lack of experience. Some are asking if
there are any men left in Chihuahua, an
unfortunate but unsurprising sentiment
given the machismo elements of Mexican
culture. Others are extremely critical
of what will be Garcia’s novel modus
operandi as police chief. Garcia plans
to implement a new type of “community
Political Promises
policing,” without directly attacking the
drug cartels themselves. She instead plans
to establish preventative programs focusing
on schools and community outreach at a
grassroots level. Nothing of this sort has
been attempted since the beginning of the
government’s war on drugs in 2006.
However, given the lack of material
support from the government and the
continued prevalence of cartels in Praxedis
Guadalupe Guerrero, Garcia’s approach
seems a necessary experiment. She will
lead a police force of only nineteen, several
of them new women recruits. Among
them, they share only one police car, a
pistol, and two rifles. Protected by two
bodyguards, Garcia herself refuses to carry
a gun, saying, “The weapons we have are
principles and values.” Though her lack of
experience is cause for legitimate concern,
it appears that most of the criticism around
Garcia’s new appointment has stemmed
from her gender. Some reporters have
actually made reference to her pink nail
polish. And yet, while defeatists and
sexists alike argue that appointing Garcia is
tantamount to giving in to the dominance
of the cartels, it would be far more fruitful
to give her new strategies a chance. Above
all, these critics would do well to borrow
some of the hopeful dedication and fiery
spirit that Garcia herself embodies.
— Molly McGregor is a sophomore in the
College of Arts & Sciences. She can be
reached at mgmcgreg@wustl.edu
Political Promises
Broken Promises in
the Gay Community
Zac Moskowitz
Even though Venezuelan citizen Henry
Valendia has married an American, the
United States is deporting him. Of course,
the federal government doesn’t recognize
his marriage. According to the Defense
of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed under
President Bill Clinton, Valendia’s marriage
to Josh Vandiver in Connecticut is not valid,
despite the fact that gay marriage is legal
in the state. Valendia and Vandiver want
to wait until the Supreme Court rules on
DOMA—which a lower court has found to
be unconstitutional—but the immigration
court will likely deny them the waiting time.
Obama promised to repeal DOMA.
Obama promised to end Don’t Ask,
Don’t Tell. Obama promised to pass the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
which would bar job discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity. In his first two years as president—
the two years in which he had the most
political capital—Obama failed to fulfill
any of these promises. He has been
particularly disappointing on the issue
of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. When a court
ordered the immediate discontinuation of
the policy, judging it to be unconstitutional,
the administration appealed the decision
and requested a stay on the ruling until
the appeals process was complete. Obama
does not want the policy to end until a
Pentagon report on the issue is completed.
As this situation unfolded, a poll of service
members included as part of the report
was leaked to the press, revealing that the
majority of military personnel don’t care if
gays serve openly.
Obama should keep his campaign
promises not only for moral reasons but for
political ones as well. His broken promises
to the gay community could mean that
Obama will lose a core demographic for
the Democratic Party. A CNN exit poll
found that over a third of self-identified
homosexuals voted Republican in the
midterm elections, the highest percentage
to date. The fact that Democrats are losing
23
Obama’s primary concern is
that the inclusion of openly
gay troops will disrupt
unit cohesion. Ironically,
many cited this concern
for the preservation of
troop cohesion to protest
President Harry Truman’s
decision to integrate the
military.
gay voters to the party of Senator Jim
DeMint, who argued that gays shouldn’t be
permitted to become teachers, reveals just
how far Obama has fallen short of fulfilling
his promises to the gay community. Indeed,
there have been promises broken and there
are promises that have yet to be addressed.
To be clear, Democrats are still far more
progressive on gay rights than Republicans.
For instance, the Iowa GOP state platform
opposes the inclusion of sexual orientation
in the Civil Rights Code and opposes gay
adoption. The Iowa GOP also seeks to repeal
the Iowa Supreme Court Decision that ruled
laws against gay marriage to be illegal. Even
worse, the Texas Republican state platform
calls for the criminalization of gay marriage
and publicly asserts that a gay couple is not a
family. Democrats, however, cannot accept
being the lesser of two evils on this issue.
Obama needs to lead the charge and take
back a block of voters that the Democrats
cannot afford to lose.
Obama should act to repeal DOMA as
soon as possible. Unfortunately, it might
be too late now that Republicans hold a
majority in the House. His best shot would
be to act during the lame-duck session—
or else it may not be repealed at all. Henry
Valendia is not the first man to be affected
by this discriminatory law, nor will he be
the last. At the very least, Obama should
ensure that civil unions or state-recognized
gay marriages can provide a foreign spouse
or partner the right to remain in the U.S.
Obama needs to stop waiting for a report
on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Troop surveys
reveal that it is not that controversial of an
issue, especially among younger service
members, who comprise the majority of
combat troops. Obama’s primary concern is
that the inclusion of openly gay troops will
24 Political Promises

disrupt unit cohesion. Ironically, many cited
this concern for the preservation of troop
cohesion in order to protest President Harry
Truman’s decision to integrate the military
in 1948. Now the first black president is
using the same argument to stall the repeal
of an overtly discriminatory policy.
President Obama cannot be expected to
keep all of the promises that he made on
the campaign trail, but he needs to do more
in the latest battle of the civil rights war in
this country; he should actively fight the
status quo, rather than passively accepting
it. With proper leadership and dedication,
Obama can keep the promises he made.
This affects not only the gay community, but
all of us, as our continued discrimination
against sexual preference is a blight on
contemporary America.
Obama must fight harder to fulfill his
promises to the gay community, to the
men and women serving in our military
who currently must conceal part of their
identity, to the people fired or not hired
due to gender choices, and to people such
as Henry Valendia, who are discovering
that the land of the free doesn’t count their
marriages.
— Zac Moskowitz is a junior in the College
of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at
zac.moskowitz@gmail.com.
surprising that political discourse today
seems focused solely on everything that
the president hasn’t accomplished. Liberals
impugn his compromises on legislative
issues; conservatives decry his lack of
bipartisanship. Stalemate and impasse have
been proclaimed the theme du jour. Two
years into his presidency, and suffering
from huge losses in the midterm elections,
Obama has been accused of breaking his
promises to practically every sector of
American society. Yet, defying all the critics,
the path of the Obama administration
has actually been one of real progress and
accomplishment.
Of course, there are several hallmark
pieces of legislation that have been enacted
since the 2008 elections. Healthcare reform
is the most obvious showcase of legislative
accomplishment, followed by the stimulus
package and the financial reform bill. These
massive pieces of legislation, vigorously legislation, there are many other ways in
debated both in Congress and by the which President Obama has accomplished
American public, are generally thought the change that no one else seems to still
of as the only projects that the Obama believe in. There’s the new program called
administration has put forth. Yet there are PowerSavers from the Department of
many smaller works that deserve attention. Housing and Urban Development, aimed
The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment at providing homeowners with “affordable,
Extension Act of 2009 not only continued federally-insured loans for home energy
federal funding for HIV care and treatment, upgrades.” There are the new, first-ever
but eliminated the HIV entry ban that had national efficiency and emissions standards
been in place since 1987. This outdated for large trucks, a giant step forward for
ban refused entry to any HIV-positive environmental concerns. Even smaller
travelers and immigrants coming to the changes, like the restoration of some sense
United States without a special waiver. of transparency for the executive office

Not Broken Obama also pushed for the recent HIRE

Act, establishing a tax credit to companies
by publishing the president’s and vice-
president’s daily schedules online, are in

Yet hiring employees who have been looking for

Anna Applebaum
Barack Obama was supposed to change
America. Once president, he would put
forth a host of transformative economic,
social, and foreign policies which would
unilaterally transform the nation into
some kind of perfect, carefree country. Of
course, he would accomplish this while
respecting the limitations of presidential
office. There would be completely bipartisan
compromises between the political parties
without relinquishing any of the promises
put forth during the campaign. He was to
end racism, anti-intellectualism, political
polarization, and culture wars all in one
fell swoop. Barack Obama was supposed to
change the world.
With expectations like these, it is not
work for 60 days or more— a crucial step
towards addressing unemployment levels.
The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility
Act (SAFRA) provided an additional $36
billion over ten years in Pell Grant funding
to help students pay for university and added
$2 billion in aid to community colleges. As
a key part of Obama’s education policy,
SAFRA has been joined by the thriving
“Race to the Top” program which provides
incentives for elementary schools to reform
school policies. And there’s more – the Lily
Ledbetter Fair Pay Act reduced gender
discrimination in equal pay lawsuits. The
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
created four new service corps specifically
directed towards education, health care,
energy and veterans. The list goes on and
on.
Moving beyond the direct effect of
tune with the very kind of transformative
America people believed Obama could
provide. And, of course, while there are
no remaining combat troops in Iraq, there
are very serious negotiations happening
between Israel and Palestine. Maybe Barack
Obama is trying to change the world.
Without a doubt, there are important
issues that President Obama has not
yet fully tackled— his pledges to the
LGBT community, the total closure of
Guantanamo Bay, and a successful climate
change bill. Perhaps the key word, though,
is “yet.” He still has two years left, if not
more, to accomplish many of these goals.
All those promises Barack Obama made?
They’re not broken yet.
— Anna Applebaum is a sophomore in
the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be
reached at a.applebaum@wustl.edu.
Political Promises
Broken Promises in a
Broken Economy:
The Economy Won’t be
Rebuilt in a Day
Hannah Shaffer
It is fashionable among die-hard
politicos and even casual observers of the
political scene to malign politicians for
their broken promises to the American
electorate. Although politicians do seem
uniquely adept at turning this brand of false
advertising into an art form, the criticism
may be undeserved in certain cases. No case
fits this bill better than President Obama’s
promises of economic recovery.
There is a limit to how much the
president can do for the economy. Obama
is not a monarch who can affect change
via executive decree. And Congress did
not permit the President to pursue the
level of stimulus spending necessary in
the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act (ARRA) for Keynesian theory to have
a fighting chance. Moreover, the state of
the economy during the “Great Recession”
was (and is) so mired in household
debt, the collapse of the financial sector,
and unemployment that it is difficult to
determine what to fix, and in what order.
One deeper, structural explanation—
that has gone largely unrecognized by
politicians and the press— for the slower-
than-promised economic recovery suggests
that there is little Obama could have done
to resuscitate our drowning economy. This
foundational flaw in the U.S. economy is
wage stagnation for the vast majority of
earners over the last four decades. (See
figure 1 for a visual illustration of the U.S.
wage-productivity imbalance.)
Since wage growth has been consistently
lower than productivity growth for the 80 %
of Americans who rely on nonmanagerial
salaries, wealth inequality has increased.
(See figure 2 for a visual illustration of the
U.S. trend toward wealthy inequality.) The
economic growth issues associated with
this structural imbalance and resulting
inequality can be understood by reference
to the laws of supply and demand. Wages
fuel consumption, the single largest
component of expenditures (or “aggregate
demand”), and productivity fuels the
25
single largest component of output (or
“aggregate supply”). Thus, when wages and
productivity are equal, aggregate supply
equals aggregate demand, and economic
growth at full employment is maintained.
According to this analysis, the U.S. wage-
productivity imbalance should have led to
a defect in the demand generating process.
If demand could not keep pace with supply,
firms would be unable to sell all of their
output to consumers. This in turn would
have led to increasing unemployment and
decreasing demand, followed by higher
unemployment and lower demand…and
so on.
Although wage stagnation has been in
effect since the 1970s, it didn’t have the teeth
described above until this recession hit.
Before the “Great Recession,” people were
able to debt-finance their expenditures. If
an American’s income could not support his
lifestyle, easy access to credit rendered this
immaterial. He could simply borrow more.
As a result, U.S. firms could sell all of their
production units, even though incomes
were stagnant for 80 % of Americans.
Demand was sufficient to purchase all
that society was producing, and so firms
continued producing and employing at high
levels in the 1990s and early 2000s. But this
balance was fragile. Easy access to credit
merely postponed the day of reckoning
associated with the above foundational
flaw. The day of reckoning has come…
The primary mechanism by which
the American people leveraged debt was
through their home—made easy by second
mortgages, mortgage equity withdrawal,
tax deductible mortgage interest, and
predatory “teaser rates.” By this point,
most everyone has heard of the “housing
bubble” and its relationship to the “Great
Recession.” (Michael Lewis’s The Big Short
has made popular the financial sector’s
antics). The intricacies of the U.S. housing
bubble are varied and complex, but the
basic story is one of undue confidence in
the housing market, in which market price
of homes become mismatched with their
fundamental value. This was followed by
increasingly risky debt-financing and the
growth of an opaque sub-prime mortgage
market.
However, the foundation of this market
was built on quicksand: housing prices were
wildly inflated, Americans could not afford
to service their mortgage payments, and
the securities derived from these mortgages
26 Political Promises

were worthless. Once the artificial nature

of the housing market was exposed, the
“bubble” burst, and the variables responsible
for the boom operated in reverse: housing
prices fell, lenders were hesitant to extend
loans, and the sub-prime market crashed
spectacularly. Once consumers stopped
spending, businesses began to lay off
workers and unemployment increased,
which led to a downward spiraling of
higher foreclosure rates, lower spending,
and lower economic output.
While the housing bubble is undoubtedly
the proximate cause of economic collapse,
viewed in light of the deeper wage-
productivity disequilibrium, the housing
bubble can be understood differently.
Perhaps the housing sector was incidental
to the cause of the recession, and any
asset large enough to serve as a means of
gaining easy access to credit would do.
Our economy needed some debt-financing
tool to neutralize the wage-productivity
imbalance, to prop up aggregate demand,
and to keep our economy ticking. Therefore,
the deeper currents pulling our economy
to its breaking point had less to do with
the housing sector than to this pervasive,


structural imbalance.
Now that this aggregate demand buttress
has fallen—access to credit dried up after Figure 2:
the recession, which economists term a
“credit crunch”—it is unsurprising that
firms are not hiring. If they cannot sell their
goods, why would they hire additional
workers? To rebuild and restore economic
growth, aggregate demand needs to rise.
Obama’s stimulus package was an attempt
to do just that. But it was not enough. In
addition to its insufficient stimulus, ARRA
does not directly combat the underlying
cause of the “demand gap”: wage stagnation
for most Americans. Inequality is at the
root of the decay, and the demand gap will
persist until inequality is addressed.
Obama has not fiddled (but maybe
golfed) as our economy burned. We should
not judge him so harshly for failing to make
good on his promise to repair our broken
economic system. The forces cracking
the foundation of both Wall Street and
Main Street are too pervasive to reverse
overnight.



— Hannah Shaffer is a junior majoring in

the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be
reached at hannahbec90@yahoo.com
International
Oil-Indignation:
The Oil Industry’s Effect
on Environmental and
Community Health
in Ecuador
Katie Ayanian
The Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of
Alaska in 1989 and the British Petroleum
oil spill in the Gulf Coast this past summer
dominated national and international
headlines for weeks after each respective
spill. There is, however, another great oil
catastrophe—one that has seldom graced
American news headlines—that is calling
for our attention. This oil disaster took
place in Ecuador over the course of 28
years and has caused an estimated 10,000
cancer deaths. From 1964 to 1992, the
American oil company Texaco, which has
since merged with Chevron Oil Company,
drilled for oil in the pristine indigenous
heartland of Ecuador. While there are
strict environmental regulations that oil
companies must adhere to when drilling
in the United States, similar regulations in
Ecuador are not frequently enforced. As
a result, Texaco was able to dump oil into
hundreds of toxic pits without being caught
by the Ecuadorian government, resulting
in devastating long-term repercussions for
27
the Ecuadorian people, including increased
rates of cancer and physical and mental
birth defects.
Chevron Toxico, an organization that
raises awareness about the harm caused
by the oil giant in Ecuador, found that by
the time Texaco left Ecuador in 1992, the
company had created 916 open toxic waste
pits and had dumped more than 18 billion
gallons of toxic water into local rivers. The
waste pits were essentially unlined holes
that the company dug in the ground. As the
wastewater seeped into the soil, it gradually
entered the water wells that the local
residents used on a daily basis. “It is the
indigenous people, those who live within the
natural environment, that are immediately
effected by environmental disasters,”
stressed Lou Dematteis, an American
photojournalist, during his presentation on
October 28 at the Washington University
Brown School of Social Work on the effects
of the Texaco oil catastrophe in Ecuador.
Dematteis emphasized that doctors warned
Texaco that their facility waste was going to
cause local residents to get sick and possibly
die, but the oil giant ignored these warnings
28 International

As a result, Texaco was able to dump oil into hundreds of toxic pits without being caught
by the Ecuadorian government, resulting in devastating long-term repercussions for the
Ecuadorian people, including increased rates of cancer and physical and mental birth
defects.

and continued to dump waste into the
environment until it left Ecuador in 1992.
Not only did Texaco ignore the health
warnings from doctors, but company
officials reassured local residents who raised
concerns about the smell and consistency
of their water that it was fine to drink. As
a result, pregnant mothers, young children
and the elderly drank the contaminated
water. Chevron Toxico reports that
there have been an increased number of
pregnancies ending in miscarriages, and
that children born to women who drank
contaminated water commonly have severe
birth defects.
In 1993, 30,000 residents of Ecuador
filed a lawsuit against Texaco in U.S. federal
court demanding that the company remove
the toxic waste that it had left behind.
Unfortunately, however, little progress was
made, and the case was moved to a court in
Ecuador in 2002 at Chevron’s request. The
plaintiffs have since submitted a damages
assessment in a U.S. federal court against
Chevron for $113 billion to cover the
costs of cleaning up the hundreds of toxic
waste pits that are scattered throughout
the country. Chevron-Texaco has spent
a significant sum of money fighting the
case in court, but has devoted very little to
improving the dangerous living conditions
they created in Ecuadorian villages.
According to federal court testimony given
by American consulting expert William
Powers on September 10, “The amount
of toxic liquids … in the environment in
Ecuador was at least 30 times the volume of
crude that was spilled in the Exxon-Valdez
disaster.”
The Chevron-Texaco oil venture in
Ecuador highlights how easily poor
indigenous people can be taken advantage
of by wealthy multi-national corporations.
The Ecuadorian oil catastrophe has
received far less media coverage than the
Exxon-Valdez oil spill in 1989 or the BP
oil spill in 2010, but the Ecuadorian people
continue to suffer from the repercussions of
the widespread waste contamination.
— Katie Ayanian is a sophomore in the
College of Arts & Sciences. She can be
reached at kayanian@wustl.edu.
International 29

However, the mutual benefit of

Turkish immigration soon faded. The
number of Turks in Germany continued
to swell, particularly after a series of
family reunification laws, despite efforts
to curtail immigration. For those Turks
who did stay in Germany, integration was
seemingly unsuccessful. Turks currently
comprise an educational and economic
underclass within German society. Of the
three “tracks” in the German high school
system, 45.4% of Turks go into the lowest,
as compared to 14.8% of Germans. Though
this track is meant to prepare students
for apprenticeships and industrial work,
very few graduates are able to get jobs.
Unemployment among foreign immigrants
is estimated to be double that of ethnic
Germans. In certain areas, the inequality
of these proportions is even more dire:
in Neukölln, a Turkish district of Berlin,
unemployment remains at 40% and much
of the population depends upon social
welfare programs.
The pressure immigrants put on
government welfare is the subject of Thilo
Sarazzin’s book Deutschland Schafft Sich
Ab or “Germany Does Away with Itself.”
Sarazzin worries that German Turks no
longer productively contribute to the
German economy and that, although they
Illustration by Kelsey Eng are—allegedly— less intelligent than ethnic
Germans, their rapid rate of reproduction

The Death of German may overwhelm mainstream Germans

in the near future. While the first edition

Multiculturalism of the book sold out within days, most

Cici Coquillette
Turkish Citizens
in Germany
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent major issue has fallen by the wayside: what
shockwaves through the international if she’s right? Year Population
media last month when she declared that Any question of multiculturalism in
multiculturalism in Germany was dead. Germany is really a question of Turkish 1967 172,439
Her remarks were another installment immigration. An estimated 3.5 million
in the recent anti-immigrant rhetoric Turks live in the country, comprising the 1970 652,812
emerging from the European Right. nation’s largest ethnic minority. Though
While French President Nicholas Sarkozy many now view immigrants as a drain 1980 1,462,442
has been courting far-right parties with on the German economy, large-scale
the newly introduced anti-Roma laws, emigration from Turkey first arose as a 1991 1,779,586
former German Bundesbank President necessary support for the rapid economic
Thilo Sarazzin has come under fire for growth in Germany after World War II. 2001 1,947,938
his new book which claims that Muslims High unemployment and population
are leading to the downfall of Western growth in Turkey meant that they had a 2007 1,713,551
European society. In this context—and large labor force to export, and Germany
All figures from the Statistische Bundesamt (Ger-
consumed by the backlash that inevitably was more than happy to oblige willing man Federal Statistical Office)
followed Merkel’s announcement—one workers.
30
German political elites have condemned
Sarazzin’s views. Indeed, he is no stranger
to controversy; he has been known to make
anti-Semitic remarks and wrote in Lettre
International in September 2009 that, “I do
not have to acknowledge anyone who lives
by welfare, denies the legitimacy of the very
state that provides that welfare, refuses to
care for the education of his children and
constantly produces new little headscarf-
girls.” Sarazzin’s views have been a double-
edged sword for German society. On the one
hand, the picture he paints of immigrants
enables further prejudice and is a detriment
to multiculturalism. Yet attempts to silence
Sarazzin lead to other troubling questions
about how far the German government
will curtail civil liberties in their efforts to
promote integration.
All in all, the state of multiculturalism
in Germany is pretty bleak. Immigrant
communities remain functionally
separate from their mainstream German
counterparts and public opinion of
immigrants continues to sink. Turks bear
the brunt of this intolerance because they
are perceived as “the most foreign” and
least likely to integrate successfully. The
cultural differences between the Turks
and Germans may seem slight, but they
have been manifested in certain ways
that are perceived to be threatening to
German values. In particular, a wave of
“honor killings” among Kurdish residents
reinforced many stereotypes about Turkish
traditionalism and questionable views
International
Sarazzin’s views have been
a double-edged sword
for German society. On
the one hand, the picture
he paints of immigrants
enables further prejudice
and is a detriment to
multiculturalism. Yet
attempts to silence
Sarazzin lead to other
troubling questions about
how far the German
government will curtail
civil liberties in their efforts
to promote integration.
against women’s rights. The sentiment In the backlash that
among Germans ranges from this concern
for democratic norms to more pervasive inevitably followed Merkel’s
feelings of threat to ethnic German identity. announcement, one major
That said, the possibilities for the
future are considerably brighter. Younger
issue has fallen by the
generations are both better educated—the wayside: what if she’s right?
best predictor of political tolerance—and
better integrated. According to the reigning
theory, the more interactions between
1,688,370
Turks and Germans, the better they will
get along – this certainly seems to be the
case among the young. Popular Turkish-
German figures such as rapper Alpa Gun
have helped to bridge the gap, and many Number of Turks residing
Turkish loan words have found their way in Germany with Turkish
into German slang. In addition, Turks have, citizenship
in times past, participated only minimally
in German politics. However, after a series
3,500,000
of reforms in 2000 eased the requirements
for attaining citizenship, it is extremely
possible that the Turkish population will
mobilize and, with their newfound political
Number of Turks with either
voice, acquire both institutional legitimacy
and acceptance. In coming years, Turkish or German citizenship
particularly as Turkey moves closer to
4,000,000
admittance to the European Union, greater
political participation and interaction may
breathe new life into a multicultural society
that has not failed but has yet to reach its
full potential. Number of German residents of
Turkish ancestral descent
— Cici Coquillette is a junior in the College
All figures from the Statistische Bundesamt (Ger-
of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at man Federal Statistical Office)
cmcoquil@wustl.edu.
International
Rethinking U.S. Defense
Policy towards China
Kelsey Berkowitz
President Obama’s recent ten day trip to
India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan
came at a time of heightened security
concerns in the Asia-Pacific region. As
China has grown into a regional hegemon,
it has become more willing to assert
territorial claims over strategic maritime
routes and resource-rich island chains in
the South China Sea, alarming its smaller
South East Asian neighbors like Vietnam
and Indonesia. In early September, Japanese
authorities detained the crew of a Chinese
fishing vessel after it collided with two
Japanese coast guard ships. The incident
caused a spat between the two countries
over who rightfully controls the Senkaku
Islands, which the Chinese call the Diaoyu
Islands. China refused Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton’s offers to have the United
States mediate the conflict, and has rejected
the U.S. assertion that the United States’
Mutual Defense Treaty with Japan covers the
disputed islands.
To be sure, the future of economic ties
between China and its neighbors looks
bright. Over the course of the last decade,
Asian countries have become increasingly
economically integrated, especially after the
adoption of a free trade agreement between
China and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) in January. With
trade barriers eradicated on 90 percent of
goods, bilateral trade between China and
ASEAN now amounts to over $200 billion
according to the Chinese Ministry of
Commerce—a 43.7 percent increase from
last year’s volume. In July, the UN Conference
on Trade and Development reported that
intra-regional foreign investment comprises
between 40 to 50 percent of foreign direct
31
investment stocks in the Asia-Pacific region.
Both of these trends will likely continue. Yet
military cooperation within the region has
lagged behind economic integration, and
the presence of the United States military
has only made this sort of cooperation more
difficult.
The security relationship between
the United States and China has grown
increasingly strained in recent months. In
August, China bristled at joint naval exercises
between the United States and South Korea
in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, and,
in September, the Chinese navy staged its
own exercises in the Yellow Sea. In January,
China broke off military ties with the United
States following the Defense Department’s
announcement that it would sell $6.4 billion
worth of arms to Taiwan, which China sees
as a breakaway Chinese province. Those
ties only recently resumed in late October,
when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
met with his counterpart, Chinese Defense
Minister Liang Guanglie, and reaffirmed the
U.S.’s desire to maintain military-to-military
communication to resolve such disputes in
the future.
32
The Obama administration
needs to develop a long-term
strategy that allows the U.S.
military to make credible
commitments to its allies...
All of this points to an inability to make
credible commitments to our allies in the
region while not irritating China. Nations
such as Japan, Vietnam, and Singapore fear
the effects that a rising China might have
on their security and have renewed their
desire for a strong U.S. presence in Asia to
provide balance against this more confident
regional hegemon. This appears to have been
counterproductive, however, as the United
States’ presence in the region only rankles
China more, aggravating those very tensions
and increasing security concerns.
The Obama administration needs to
develop a long-term strategy that allows the
U.S. military to make credible commitments
to its allies while facilitating peace and
dialogue between countries in the region.
The United States should continue to
enhance military-level cooperation with
our Asian allies, but it should do so with
an eye towards promoting regional security
cooperation between China and other Asian
nations. One way to do this is to invite
China to participate in multi-country joint
naval exercises between China, the United
States, and U.S. allies such as Japan, South
Korea, and Vietnam. The U.S. should also
push ASEAN nations and China to finalize,
adopt, and implement the South China Seas
Code of Conduct, which would provide
a concrete legal framework for resolving
maritime disputes in the future. The
Obama administration should also make it
abundantly clear to the Chinese government
that, while it will continue to fulfill its
commitments to its allies in the region,
security cooperation in Asia is not a zero-
sum game. Greater security and military
transparency is a benefit in which China
can share, and creating real security requires
that it play an active role in the process.
Finally, the United States should not view
China simply as a rival nation that must be
International
countered. It is in the interest of the United
States to keep the lines of communication
with China open because, while saber
rattling may not lead to an actual war, it
distracts from collaborative efforts to tackle
global issues like nuclear non-proliferation,
global climate change, and diplomatic
negotiations with North Korea.
These increased security concerns are just
some of the many products of a rising China
and a movement towards a multi-polar
world order in which emerging nations have
greater capabilities and influence. How the
United States chooses to manage its bilateral
relations with China and the role it chooses
to play in Asia will have a major impact on
security in the region, and that impact can be
either positive or negative. If tensions in the
region continue to climb, it will be in part
because the United States helps to fuel them.
The United States can instead prevent such
regional destabilization by using its influence
to facilitate greater security cooperation
between China and its neighbors.
— Kelsey Berkowitz is a junior in the College
of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at
klberkow@wustl.edu.
International
You Don’t Get to 500,000
Documents Without
Leaving a Few Questions
Jannina Phi
In June 2010, the organization WikiLeaks
released 91,731 classified documents
concerning the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Just three months later, that seemingly large
number was dwarfed by the publication of
an astonishing 391,832 field reports from
the Iraq war— the largest leak of classified
documents in U.S. history. The documents
from both wars have been hailed as
everything from “strategy changers” to
“2010’s Watergate” to, as Politico recently
trumpeted, the “Pentagon Papers on
steroids.”
Proponents of WikiLeaks argue
that transparency and the free flow of
information are necessities of modern
society, especially to counter the filter of
the mainstream media. The Guardian
described these logs as contrasting with
the “sanitized ‘public war’” as seen through
“snapshots of embedded reporting.” This
pro-transparency view isn’t surprising;
after all, expecting accountability from
those in power has been an integral part
of the American consciousness since the
writing of the Constitution. Advocates of
WikiLeaks argue that leaks like these allow
us to monitor the government and serve as
an essential check on government actions.
Others argue that the release of details
regarding both military and civilian deaths
paint a brutally realistic portrait of the war–
hopefully garnering support for the anti-
war movement.
Opponents of the leaked documents
argue that there’s nothing behind them
but pure sensationalism. This second wave
of documents led to no new significant
discoveries about the management of
the Iraq war, yet depicted in detail the
confusion, bloodshed, and pain that
accompanies any war. Both proponents
and opponents of the leaks realize the
power of these documents to sway public
opinion. Moreover, while these documents
have been screened for information that
could potentially be harmful to individual
Americans, the screening was much less
strict for Afghan informants: while their
names aren’t explicitly stated, it is relatively
easy to connect the dots from the specialized
nature of the information provided. Many
records even include the names of their
tribes, villages, and fathers. In fact, within
33
the first two hours of searching the archive,
The Times of London reported finding the
names of dozens of Afghans who provided
intelligence to the United States. A former
Washington Post editor said that there
is little question that many of the people
mentioned in these documents “have a
reasonable belief that they are going to get
killed, or— actually the way it works with
the Taliban is, if they can’t find you, they’ll
take your brother instead.”
Early reports about the leaks heralded
them as revealing the “truth” about the two
wars— The New York Times gave it the
bold, definitive label the “War Logs” and
The Guardian declared that the released
Afghan war documents depicted “the true
nature of this war.” However, the leaked
reports are all written from an American
perspective. While these documents are
extremely helpful in providing depth and
context to our understanding of the wars,
this single perspective cannot be called
the ultimate “truth” of the wars. There
are countless other voices that haven’t
been heard. Indeed, Reporters Without
Borders accused WikiLeaks of “incredible
irresponsibility,” which raises the question
of how international journalists see the war.
What do volunteer aid workers think? How
about reports from the civilians living in the
midst of the war chaos? Or what about the
experiences of soldiers from countries other
than America? After all, there are more than
45 other countries that sent soldiers to Iraq,
all of whom have had firsthand experiences
as well. Can one perspective definitively be
called the “truth”? More importantly, the
truth is still being battled, manufactured,
twisted, and created, yet the presentation
of these “War Logs” has been framed as if
the wars ended long ago and there aren’t any
more soldiers fighting on the ground.
Ultimately, regardless of whether one is
for or against WikiLeaks’ decision to release
these documents, they are now out in the
public sphere. Having set a formidable
precedent for the presentation of public
knowledge, WikiLeaks now leaves us with
more questions than answers. Our challenge
now is to take the wealth of information
from these reports and use it to make a real
difference in how we approach, analyze, and
manage conflicts in the future.
— Jannina Phi is a sophomore in the College
of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at
jphi@wustl.edu
By the
Numbers
What Needs to be Fixed?
63% 36%
The percentage of
Democrats that would like
to see Congress make a
new economic stimulus bill
its highest priority.
The Alaska Senate Race
8,159 2,169
The number of ballots still
being contested by Joe
Miller’s supporters in his
Senate race against Lisa
Murkowski.
Healthcare and
Public Perception
24% 10%
The percentage of
Americans that consider
access to be the most
important healthcare
challenge facing the
country.
wupr.org
More fun than class!
In Their
Own
Words
The percentage of
Republicans that would
like to see Congress
make a repeal of Obama’s
healthcare package it
highest priority. “Republicans should sober up. It is always difficult to defeat
a sitting president. Since World War II, three have been
defeated for re-election and two decided not to run again. But
five have sought and won second terms.”
Murkowski’s lead, even
— Karl Rove on the 2012 Presidential election
without the votes in
question.
“This is something that I think every president needs to go
through, because you know, the responsibilities of this office
are so enormous and so many people are depending on what
we do… In the rush of activity, sometimes we lose track of...
the ways that we connected with folks that got us here in the
first place… Now, I’m not recommending for every future
president that they take a shellacking like I did last night…
The percentage of I’m sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons. But I
Americans that consider do think that, you know, this is a growth process. And an
government involvement evolution.”
to be the most important
healthcare challenge — President Barack Obama on the midterm election results
facing the country.
“I’m the guy on the campaign that said if Hillary gave
[Obama] one of her balls, they’d both have two.”
— Democratic Strategist James Carville