Last week's Democratic triumph at the polls brings an end to Newt Gingrich's ('65C) 1994 Republican Revolution and shows that the Republicans are in danger of becoming a permanent minority party if they do not change their ways.
The Republicans who stormed into power in the House in 1994 promised to change Washington. Washington instead changed them. After 12 years of power in the House, and many years of control in the Senate, the Republicans found themselves embroiled in corruption scandals and detached from the conservative values that brought them to power. The party of small government and financial prudence had created the largest budget deficit in our country's history.
To distract citizens from the government's failure to control spending, Karl Rove and the Republican Party turned to the three Gs: God, Guns and Gays. The GOP tried to use religion, gay marriage and the threat that Democrats would eliminate the right to bear guns to its advantage. Republicans coupled the three Gs with other wedge issues like flag burning and abortion to avoid tackling more pertinent issues, like the War in Iraq.
It took an unpopular war, a huge corruption scandal and Mark Foley to actually turn the tide against the Republicans, but last week it happened in a big way. The Republicans adopted a poor campaign strategy and the Democrats for once ran a decent campaign to sweep back into power.
The problem for the Republicans was that they refused to change their ways. They continued to run on wedge issues and to support conservative candidates who in many ways were out of line with voters. The Democrats picked moderate candidates who were able to get elected in more conservative districts. By picking pragmatism over ideology, the Democrats took back Congress.
But the GOP's loss may be more serious than even conservatives might think. Many moderate Republicans were voted out of Congress, including Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Mike DeWine of Ohio. The GOP is almost ceding the Northeast to the Democrats. By focusing on the South, extreme conservatives and evangelicals, the Republicans are straying away from the center. In this election, many independents and moderate Republicans voted for Democrats because of the Republican Party's behavior. If the Republicans do not move back to the center, look for the Democrats to win more seats in Congress, along with the presidency, in 2008.
Karl Rove contended throughout this election that the GOP's "Get Out the Vote" effort would catapult the Republicans to victory. This was clearly not the case. Rove said the loss fell in line with historical trends, which it clearly did.
But in prior elections, Rove was able to buck historical trends. Rove's tactics failed so spectacularly, that even Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman criticized him. "If we simply say there were historical problems we could not overcome, and that we did not have a chance to win, then we have a real problem," Mehlman said.
President Bush claimed publicly before and after the election that he thought Republicans would win. This prompted a reporter to ask the President: "Are you out of touch with the American people?"
The answer to this question is clear. Both the president and the Republican Party are out of touch. The majority of Americans aren't on the far left or right; they are in the center, and the GOP needs to return to this center before the 2008 election cycle.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
This article ran 11/17/06.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Steve Jobs-Stanford 2005 Commencement Address
Here's a really neat speech that Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs gave at Stanford's Commencement last year.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A Wheel Article that may be one of the most amusing and pathetic things I have ever read
This article ran in today's Wheel. I cannot believe they ran it. I have highlighted the most amusing parts. It shows everything that is wrong with Emory. Too many kids like John.
John, a College freshman, drove up to the front of Complex Residential Center in his BMW sport utility vehicle on his first day at Emory.
His parents, who had flown to Atlanta, met him on campus and helped him unload his Tumi and Swiss Army luggage and other belongings.
But after John was settled in, his parents didn't take the car.
The BMW stayed on campus, and his parents and brother flew home.
Since then, John, who asked that his real name not be used in this story, has made full use of the mobility having a car has given him.
He has eaten at most of Zagat's top-20 restaurants in Atlanta, gets regular massages at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Buckhead and goes to bars and clubs without having to pay for a cab.
"I needed a car to have the life I had before. Otherwise I'd be bound to campus and have to use public transportation and shuttles," John said.
Emory administrators are trying to reduce dependence on single-occupancy vehicles on and around campus by providing more alternative transportation options, from increased shuttle routes to the proposed "Brain Train" that would stop at Emory on its route from Athens to downtown Atlanta.
But many students still find it difficult to get around without a car. As a result, many freshmen disregard the rule against parking on campus.
Chris, a Goizueta Business School junior who also asked that his real name not be used, brought his GMC Envoy to Emory from his hometown in rural Georgia his freshman year.
"When I was a senior in high school, I decided that there wasn't a chance I wouldn't have a car here my freshman year," he said.
Like many freshmen with cars on campus, Chris bought a parking pass from an upperclassman who didn't need it.
"I don't really consider it breaking the rules," he said. "An upperclassman could have needed a car but didn't."
Phil Sauerbrun, manager of parking registration and enforcement, explained that freshmen are not allowed to have cars because Emory's parking resources are inadequate.
"We are currently at capacity with all our parking lots, and if we had to accommodate freshmen, we'd be turning people away," he said.
But some students speculate the administration has other reasons for prohibiting freshmen from having cars.
"They probably don't want us to have cars because cars can be a sign of wealth, and they don't want it to be a social status thing," said College freshman Andy Crane, who lives in John's hall.
John agreed that having his BMW is a matter of status.
"If you have a car, then you have something the other kids don't have," he said.
But for Chris, having a car during freshman year was all about convenience, including driving home for breaks.
"It would have been a hassle for my parents to have to pick me up - I live 90 miles from Emory," he said.
But he added that he quickly became known as "the boy with the car," and friends and fraternity leaders frequently pressed him for rides.
"Once [the higher-ups] find out you have a car, the rest of the pledge class has to borrow it," he explained.
According to the Transportation and Parking Services Rules and Regulations, a vehicle found parked illegally on campus is usually booted so the parking office can determine its owner, who must report to the parking office and pay a $100 fine before the boot is removed.
Although booting may ensnare some rebellious freshmen, it does not address the problem of freshmen who hold permits under upperclassmen's names, Sauerbrun said.
"It's against the rules to transfer a permit," he said. "If you do, you're going to be responsible for all the tickets accumulated because the permit is in your name."
But getting caught parking on campus can still have consequences for freshmen. Sauerbrun said some students have been denied parking privileges following their freshman year.
But despite the general ban, some freshmen are given permission to park on campus.
Students with disabilities, freshmen who live within driving distance of Emory and students who work off-campus and out of the reach of public transportation may be allowed to have cars at Emory.
College freshman Brian Peart was granted permission to park on campus because he commutes daily from his home in Ellwood, Ga., and works 26 hours a week at the Adidas store in the Lenox Square Mall.
For Peart, the advantages of having a car on campus are outweighed by the hassles of local traffic and the costs of gas, insurance and his Emory parking permit.
As for helping his friends without cars, he said, "I like to, but sometimes they give me gas money, [and] sometimes they don't."
John, on the other hand, sees having a car on campus as a completely advantageous situation.
"I have much more freedom than any freshman here," he said. "I can go anywhere and do anything."
John, a College freshman, drove up to the front of Complex Residential Center in his BMW sport utility vehicle on his first day at Emory.
His parents, who had flown to Atlanta, met him on campus and helped him unload his Tumi and Swiss Army luggage and other belongings.
But after John was settled in, his parents didn't take the car.
The BMW stayed on campus, and his parents and brother flew home.
Since then, John, who asked that his real name not be used in this story, has made full use of the mobility having a car has given him.
He has eaten at most of Zagat's top-20 restaurants in Atlanta, gets regular massages at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Buckhead and goes to bars and clubs without having to pay for a cab.
"I needed a car to have the life I had before. Otherwise I'd be bound to campus and have to use public transportation and shuttles," John said.
Emory administrators are trying to reduce dependence on single-occupancy vehicles on and around campus by providing more alternative transportation options, from increased shuttle routes to the proposed "Brain Train" that would stop at Emory on its route from Athens to downtown Atlanta.
But many students still find it difficult to get around without a car. As a result, many freshmen disregard the rule against parking on campus.
Chris, a Goizueta Business School junior who also asked that his real name not be used, brought his GMC Envoy to Emory from his hometown in rural Georgia his freshman year.
"When I was a senior in high school, I decided that there wasn't a chance I wouldn't have a car here my freshman year," he said.
Like many freshmen with cars on campus, Chris bought a parking pass from an upperclassman who didn't need it.
"I don't really consider it breaking the rules," he said. "An upperclassman could have needed a car but didn't."
Phil Sauerbrun, manager of parking registration and enforcement, explained that freshmen are not allowed to have cars because Emory's parking resources are inadequate.
"We are currently at capacity with all our parking lots, and if we had to accommodate freshmen, we'd be turning people away," he said.
But some students speculate the administration has other reasons for prohibiting freshmen from having cars.
"They probably don't want us to have cars because cars can be a sign of wealth, and they don't want it to be a social status thing," said College freshman Andy Crane, who lives in John's hall.
John agreed that having his BMW is a matter of status.
"If you have a car, then you have something the other kids don't have," he said.
But for Chris, having a car during freshman year was all about convenience, including driving home for breaks.
"It would have been a hassle for my parents to have to pick me up - I live 90 miles from Emory," he said.
But he added that he quickly became known as "the boy with the car," and friends and fraternity leaders frequently pressed him for rides.
"Once [the higher-ups] find out you have a car, the rest of the pledge class has to borrow it," he explained.
According to the Transportation and Parking Services Rules and Regulations, a vehicle found parked illegally on campus is usually booted so the parking office can determine its owner, who must report to the parking office and pay a $100 fine before the boot is removed.
Although booting may ensnare some rebellious freshmen, it does not address the problem of freshmen who hold permits under upperclassmen's names, Sauerbrun said.
"It's against the rules to transfer a permit," he said. "If you do, you're going to be responsible for all the tickets accumulated because the permit is in your name."
But getting caught parking on campus can still have consequences for freshmen. Sauerbrun said some students have been denied parking privileges following their freshman year.
But despite the general ban, some freshmen are given permission to park on campus.
Students with disabilities, freshmen who live within driving distance of Emory and students who work off-campus and out of the reach of public transportation may be allowed to have cars at Emory.
College freshman Brian Peart was granted permission to park on campus because he commutes daily from his home in Ellwood, Ga., and works 26 hours a week at the Adidas store in the Lenox Square Mall.
For Peart, the advantages of having a car on campus are outweighed by the hassles of local traffic and the costs of gas, insurance and his Emory parking permit.
As for helping his friends without cars, he said, "I like to, but sometimes they give me gas money, [and] sometimes they don't."
John, on the other hand, sees having a car on campus as a completely advantageous situation.
"I have much more freedom than any freshman here," he said. "I can go anywhere and do anything."
Wheel Column: A Trainwreck- Has the Amtrak System Reached the End of the Line?
Have you ever ridden on Amtrak?
Have you ever even heard of Amtrak?
Amtrak is America's national train system that hasn't turned a profit in its 35-year history and is still chugging along only by virtue of a yearly cash infusion of more than $1 billion from Congress. Right now, Amtrak is in debt to the tune of $3.5 billion and has almost no hope of turning a profit in the near future.
You probably didn't know there is a daily Amtrak train that runs through Atlanta. Each night at 8:21 p.m., the Crescent Train on route from New Orleans to New York City pulls into the Amtrak station on Peachtree Street. For $119 - and nearly 18 hours of your time - you will arrive at New York City. For a mere $5 more, you could take an AirTran flight that would get you to New York in time for a late dinner.
And here lies the problem with Amtrak. Most Americans do not want to spend days on a train when they can get to their destination in hours through the air. Even worse, Amtrak usually charges more for long-distance routes than air travel, leaving it without a competitive advantage against the airlines.
For example, an Amtrak trip from Chicago to Los Angeles costs $140. Travel by Southwest Airlines, and it costs $109. The Amtrak cost includes nothing more than a seat on the train; for a shower or a bedroom you can expect to fork over hundreds more. Considering a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles takes almost two days on Amtrak, you'll probably want that shower and bed.
Amtrak even manages to achieve what many travelers would view as impossible - a system of travel less punctual than the airlines. Throughout the long-distance system, Amtrak's trains average being on time about 50 percent of the time. Even if you include the reasonably efficient operations in the Northeast and on the West Coast, Amtrak's overall on-time percentage last year was around 70 percent. Compare that to around 80 percent in air travel.
As mentioned before, each year, Amtrak gets a federal subsidy from Congress for their operations. President Bush proposed to eliminate this subsidy in 2005, but Congress decided to give the beleaguered railroad system $1.3 billion anyway.
For 2006, Bush proposed $900 million, which the administration claimed would force Amtrak to become more efficient. Amtrak cried foul, saying that an amount so low would kill the system. Once again, Congress jumped to the rescue and allocated $1.4 billion.
So why does Congress love Amtrak so much? Simply put, it runs through 46 of the 50 states in the Union. Members of Congress fight hard to keep service in their state in order to benefit the handful of people who use it.
All in all, Amtrak is a waste of money. The billions of dollars Congress gives Amtrak so they continue to lose even more money would be better spent on college loans or a multitude of worthier causes.
The era of long-distance rail service is dead in America. Amtrak's routes in the Northeast, the last bastion of feasible railway travel, could be sold and run successfully by a private company. Amtrak's other semisuccessful route in California could either be privatized or sold to the state of California. The long-distance routes would be abandoned as relics of the past.
Joseph Vranich, an Amtrak creator turned leading advocate of the railway system's dissolution, wrote in his book, End of the Line: "The federal government does not run a national airline. It does not operate a national bus company ... There is no justification for the federal government to own and operate a national railroad passenger system."
Vranich is right. Congress has no business wasting our tax dollars just to keep a money-hemorrhaging train system alive. Amtrak has outlived its usefulness.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
Have you ever even heard of Amtrak?
Amtrak is America's national train system that hasn't turned a profit in its 35-year history and is still chugging along only by virtue of a yearly cash infusion of more than $1 billion from Congress. Right now, Amtrak is in debt to the tune of $3.5 billion and has almost no hope of turning a profit in the near future.
You probably didn't know there is a daily Amtrak train that runs through Atlanta. Each night at 8:21 p.m., the Crescent Train on route from New Orleans to New York City pulls into the Amtrak station on Peachtree Street. For $119 - and nearly 18 hours of your time - you will arrive at New York City. For a mere $5 more, you could take an AirTran flight that would get you to New York in time for a late dinner.
And here lies the problem with Amtrak. Most Americans do not want to spend days on a train when they can get to their destination in hours through the air. Even worse, Amtrak usually charges more for long-distance routes than air travel, leaving it without a competitive advantage against the airlines.
For example, an Amtrak trip from Chicago to Los Angeles costs $140. Travel by Southwest Airlines, and it costs $109. The Amtrak cost includes nothing more than a seat on the train; for a shower or a bedroom you can expect to fork over hundreds more. Considering a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles takes almost two days on Amtrak, you'll probably want that shower and bed.
Amtrak even manages to achieve what many travelers would view as impossible - a system of travel less punctual than the airlines. Throughout the long-distance system, Amtrak's trains average being on time about 50 percent of the time. Even if you include the reasonably efficient operations in the Northeast and on the West Coast, Amtrak's overall on-time percentage last year was around 70 percent. Compare that to around 80 percent in air travel.
As mentioned before, each year, Amtrak gets a federal subsidy from Congress for their operations. President Bush proposed to eliminate this subsidy in 2005, but Congress decided to give the beleaguered railroad system $1.3 billion anyway.
For 2006, Bush proposed $900 million, which the administration claimed would force Amtrak to become more efficient. Amtrak cried foul, saying that an amount so low would kill the system. Once again, Congress jumped to the rescue and allocated $1.4 billion.
So why does Congress love Amtrak so much? Simply put, it runs through 46 of the 50 states in the Union. Members of Congress fight hard to keep service in their state in order to benefit the handful of people who use it.
All in all, Amtrak is a waste of money. The billions of dollars Congress gives Amtrak so they continue to lose even more money would be better spent on college loans or a multitude of worthier causes.
The era of long-distance rail service is dead in America. Amtrak's routes in the Northeast, the last bastion of feasible railway travel, could be sold and run successfully by a private company. Amtrak's other semisuccessful route in California could either be privatized or sold to the state of California. The long-distance routes would be abandoned as relics of the past.
Joseph Vranich, an Amtrak creator turned leading advocate of the railway system's dissolution, wrote in his book, End of the Line: "The federal government does not run a national airline. It does not operate a national bus company ... There is no justification for the federal government to own and operate a national railroad passenger system."
Vranich is right. Congress has no business wasting our tax dollars just to keep a money-hemorrhaging train system alive. Amtrak has outlived its usefulness.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
Finally an update: My last two Wheel Columns on the Midterms
Here are my two columns that ran during election week. You will see that I was off by one Senate race (Virginia) in my predictions.
Scoreing the Midterms (ran 11/10/06)
President Bush's "I am the decider" era came to a close Tuesday evening. Shortly before 11 p.m., each of the major networks projected the Democrats would take over majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
As the night rolled on, it became obvious that the Democrats were poised to make major pickups in both the House and the Senate. Karl Rove's promise that the Republican get-out-the-vote operation would deny the Democrats victory turned out to be completely untrue.
Going into the evening, a Democratic pickup of the 15 seats was necessary to take control of the House for the first time since 1994 was nearly a foregone conclusion. But the Democrats surpassed all expectations, gaining 20 seats in the House, which was enough to comfortably take the House, making House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi the first female speaker of the House in America's history.
The Democrats were also expected to pick up seats in the Senate, but in order to gain control of the upper house the Democrats had to pick up six seats without losing any currently held by Democrats. After George Allen's (R-VA) concession last night, the Democrats will go into the 110th Congress with a 51-49 majority. Here's how the Senate races played out:
In New Jersey, Democrat Robert Menendez easily held onto his seat in one of the earliest races to be called on Tuesday evening. This race was not nearly as close as pundits had thought, with Menendez easily winning with 53 percent of the vote.
In Tennessee, Republican Bob Corker beat Democrat Harold Ford Jr. 51 percent to 48 percent. This meant that the Democrats needed to win both of the other two important races, Missouri and Virginia, to take control.
There was, however, another wrinkle that election forecasters did not predict. In Montana, pundits had picked Democratic challenger Jon Tester to easily beat incumbent Republican Conrad Burns. As Tuesday night became Wednesday morning, this race was too close to call.
So in order to take control, the Democrats had to win Montana, Missouri and Virginia - not an easy task.
Democrat Claire McCaskill was projected the winner of the Missouri Senate seat by a 49-48 margin in the early hours of Wednesday morning, leaving just the Montana and Virginia seats up for grabs. The margins in these races were small enough that it soon became clear there would be no winner until the next day.
Early Wednesday afternoon, Tester finally picked up enough votes to be projected as the winner in Montana, beating Burns by a mere 3,000 votes. This gave the Democrats a 50-49 lead in the Senate, with only Virginia left up for grabs. The Democrats needed to win this seat to win the Senate.
Finally, more than 24 hours after the polls closed, The Associated Press said Democrat Jim Webb upset Republican incumbent George Allen in the Virginia race. Allen's concession last night made Webb's victory official.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, President Bush will become a "lame duck." The Democratic Party will be able to control the legislative agenda, and the President will no longer be "the decider."
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
The Midterm Elections, Through the Crystall Ball (ran 11/7/06)
U.S. senators have great jobs. They make $165,200 per year and get great healthcare, a very generous pension, and also wield enough power to influence national policy.
Perhaps the best perk for incumbent senators, however, is job security. From 1952-1992, 80 percent of senators won reelection. This percentage has been even higher, recently, with more than 90 percent of senators winning reelection since 1996.
Today, however, this high percentage is likely to fall.
Democrats need to gain six senate seats in today’s midterm elections to take control of the Senate. Most election forecasters expect four incumbent Republican senators to lose their races: Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Conrad Burns of Montana and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Having four incumbent senators lose is unusual enough, but there are four more races — three of which threaten incumbents — that will determine which party controls the Senate.
The races that threaten incumbents are: New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez faces Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr.; Missouri, where Republican incumbent Jim Talent faces Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill; Virginia, where Republican incumbent George Allen faces Democratic challenger Jim Webb. In Tennessee, where there is an open seat because of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s decision not to seek re-election, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. faces Republican Bob Corker.
Let’s examine these four races, examine which issues will decide the elections, and predict the winner:
• New Jersey: Menendez has the best chance of holding onto his seat of any of the challenged incumbents. Even still, he faces two major obstacles to re-election: he was appointed to his seat, not elected to it, and he’a also embroiled in corruption allegations.
Pick: Menendez — he’ll be able to squeak out a win because of his party affiliation.
• Missouri: Surprisingly, stem cell research has become this campaign’s key issue, thanks to a controversial stem cell measure on the Missouri ballot.
Pick: McCaskill, after falling short in the 2004 governor’s race, McCaskill should be able to pick up a slim victory due to her support for embryonic stem cell research.
• Virginia: Six months ago Sen. Allen was coasting toward re-election and eyeing a possible 2008 presidential big. Now his Senate race is one of the most competitive in the nation. Jim Webb, a Republican turned Democrat who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, has used his moderate positions on many issues to turn this race into a tossup.
Pick: Allen — the incumbent should be able to hold on.
• Tennessee. This race may match the Virginia one in terms of nastiness. Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga, faces Ford, who is attempting to become the first black senator from the South since reconstruction. Ford’s race has become a major factor in the race. The Corker campaign ran an ad featuring a Playboy Playmate who says she partied with Ford. Ford responded by saying that while he did attend a Playboy party at the Superbowl, it was a large party with more than 3,000 people. Ford made no apologies, saying, “I like football and I like girls.”
Pick: Corker — Tennessee is still not ready to elect a black senator.
I predict the Democrats will take five seats in the Senate and hold onto their one endangered seat. That would give the Democrats 50 seats, keeping Republican control of the Senate because of the Vice President’s role as casting the tie-breaking vote. This could make things very interesting in the next two years, because the Republicans’ grip on power will significantly weakened, but still intact.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
Scoreing the Midterms (ran 11/10/06)
President Bush's "I am the decider" era came to a close Tuesday evening. Shortly before 11 p.m., each of the major networks projected the Democrats would take over majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
As the night rolled on, it became obvious that the Democrats were poised to make major pickups in both the House and the Senate. Karl Rove's promise that the Republican get-out-the-vote operation would deny the Democrats victory turned out to be completely untrue.
Going into the evening, a Democratic pickup of the 15 seats was necessary to take control of the House for the first time since 1994 was nearly a foregone conclusion. But the Democrats surpassed all expectations, gaining 20 seats in the House, which was enough to comfortably take the House, making House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi the first female speaker of the House in America's history.
The Democrats were also expected to pick up seats in the Senate, but in order to gain control of the upper house the Democrats had to pick up six seats without losing any currently held by Democrats. After George Allen's (R-VA) concession last night, the Democrats will go into the 110th Congress with a 51-49 majority. Here's how the Senate races played out:
In New Jersey, Democrat Robert Menendez easily held onto his seat in one of the earliest races to be called on Tuesday evening. This race was not nearly as close as pundits had thought, with Menendez easily winning with 53 percent of the vote.
In Tennessee, Republican Bob Corker beat Democrat Harold Ford Jr. 51 percent to 48 percent. This meant that the Democrats needed to win both of the other two important races, Missouri and Virginia, to take control.
There was, however, another wrinkle that election forecasters did not predict. In Montana, pundits had picked Democratic challenger Jon Tester to easily beat incumbent Republican Conrad Burns. As Tuesday night became Wednesday morning, this race was too close to call.
So in order to take control, the Democrats had to win Montana, Missouri and Virginia - not an easy task.
Democrat Claire McCaskill was projected the winner of the Missouri Senate seat by a 49-48 margin in the early hours of Wednesday morning, leaving just the Montana and Virginia seats up for grabs. The margins in these races were small enough that it soon became clear there would be no winner until the next day.
Early Wednesday afternoon, Tester finally picked up enough votes to be projected as the winner in Montana, beating Burns by a mere 3,000 votes. This gave the Democrats a 50-49 lead in the Senate, with only Virginia left up for grabs. The Democrats needed to win this seat to win the Senate.
Finally, more than 24 hours after the polls closed, The Associated Press said Democrat Jim Webb upset Republican incumbent George Allen in the Virginia race. Allen's concession last night made Webb's victory official.
With the Democrats in control of Congress, President Bush will become a "lame duck." The Democratic Party will be able to control the legislative agenda, and the President will no longer be "the decider."
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
The Midterm Elections, Through the Crystall Ball (ran 11/7/06)
U.S. senators have great jobs. They make $165,200 per year and get great healthcare, a very generous pension, and also wield enough power to influence national policy.
Perhaps the best perk for incumbent senators, however, is job security. From 1952-1992, 80 percent of senators won reelection. This percentage has been even higher, recently, with more than 90 percent of senators winning reelection since 1996.
Today, however, this high percentage is likely to fall.
Democrats need to gain six senate seats in today’s midterm elections to take control of the Senate. Most election forecasters expect four incumbent Republican senators to lose their races: Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Conrad Burns of Montana and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Having four incumbent senators lose is unusual enough, but there are four more races — three of which threaten incumbents — that will determine which party controls the Senate.
The races that threaten incumbents are: New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Robert Menendez faces Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr.; Missouri, where Republican incumbent Jim Talent faces Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill; Virginia, where Republican incumbent George Allen faces Democratic challenger Jim Webb. In Tennessee, where there is an open seat because of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s decision not to seek re-election, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. faces Republican Bob Corker.
Let’s examine these four races, examine which issues will decide the elections, and predict the winner:
• New Jersey: Menendez has the best chance of holding onto his seat of any of the challenged incumbents. Even still, he faces two major obstacles to re-election: he was appointed to his seat, not elected to it, and he’a also embroiled in corruption allegations.
Pick: Menendez — he’ll be able to squeak out a win because of his party affiliation.
• Missouri: Surprisingly, stem cell research has become this campaign’s key issue, thanks to a controversial stem cell measure on the Missouri ballot.
Pick: McCaskill, after falling short in the 2004 governor’s race, McCaskill should be able to pick up a slim victory due to her support for embryonic stem cell research.
• Virginia: Six months ago Sen. Allen was coasting toward re-election and eyeing a possible 2008 presidential big. Now his Senate race is one of the most competitive in the nation. Jim Webb, a Republican turned Democrat who served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, has used his moderate positions on many issues to turn this race into a tossup.
Pick: Allen — the incumbent should be able to hold on.
• Tennessee. This race may match the Virginia one in terms of nastiness. Corker, the former mayor of Chattanooga, faces Ford, who is attempting to become the first black senator from the South since reconstruction. Ford’s race has become a major factor in the race. The Corker campaign ran an ad featuring a Playboy Playmate who says she partied with Ford. Ford responded by saying that while he did attend a Playboy party at the Superbowl, it was a large party with more than 3,000 people. Ford made no apologies, saying, “I like football and I like girls.”
Pick: Corker — Tennessee is still not ready to elect a black senator.
I predict the Democrats will take five seats in the Senate and hold onto their one endangered seat. That would give the Democrats 50 seats, keeping Republican control of the Senate because of the Vice President’s role as casting the tie-breaking vote. This could make things very interesting in the next two years, because the Republicans’ grip on power will significantly weakened, but still intact.
Benjamin van der Horst is a College sophomore from Cincinnati. He is executive director of the nonpartisan political organization CSAmerica and the managing editor of the Emory Political Review.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)