November 2008

This story is about a week old by now, which is decades in internet-time, but I didn't want it to pass without mention here. Henry Waxman (On the left, with the power mustache) challenged and defeated John Dingell for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which was about a 6.5 on the political Richter scale. John Dingell has been the ranking Democratic member of this committee since 1995, and assumed the chairmanship when the Democrats took control of the House after the 2006 elections. Dingell has always been a staunch advocate for the auto companies (and by extension the oil companies), and has been blocking regulations aimed at curbing global climate change for years and years.

Oftentimes when people aren't acquainted with how the federal government really works, they'll read about a problem, like, say, climate change, with some widely agreed upon measures that need to be taken, and say "why doesn't the government just do that?" Nine out of ten times the answer is because of someone like John Dingell; A congressman or senator with seniority and a chairmanship who uses his or her power to myopically advocate for a narrow constituency.

Shocking news, I know. I found myself driving around 1 in the afternoon today, and I did what I always do when I'm driving by myself; I listened to right-wing talk radio! Limbaugh was bleating about how the call by Senate Democrats and President-Elect Obama for the automakers to submit viable business plans to congress with an emphasis on fuel efficient vehicles before forking over tens of billions of dollars, amounts to the end of freedom and the dawn of the Democratic centrally planned economy.

He kept insisting that "Obama and Pelosi" were demanding that the automakers "bend over and grab their ankles" (his words, not mine) and would force automakers to stop making cars that everyone wants (SUVs, trucks) and force them to make cars that "nobody wants" (only pussies drive small cars, dontcha know). He seemed to think that his argument that in America car companies should be able to make whatever cars they want to was some kind of brilliant insight.

The point he was missing, though, is pretty obvious. The fact of the matter is that car companies do have the right to make whatever cars they want (subject to existing regulations), but they don't have the freedom to be entitled to billions of dollars of taxpayer money without strings attached. If the automakers want to walk away from the table right now and just keep selling Rush Limbaugh more SUVs that's entirely their perogative. But Rush never explained why they are entitled to billions of taxpayer dollars if they're running their companies so profitably in the first place.

Yesterday Ray over at PhillyBits patiently explained to the denser than usual ALa at Blonde Sagacity that no, there is no "Cult of Obama." This debate was tiresome before the voting even started in the primary, but Ray does a great (and funny) job of going over all the salient points.

The only thing I would add is that those crying "cult!" aren't really making a good faith argument. The goal isn't to make a point for the ten thousandth time, it's to belittle those of us that concluded that Obama and his policies would be better for more people than McCain. It's made to dismiss us, not to engage us, and above all to make ALa and her ilk feel better about themselves for living in the 13th century.

I do find it interesting, though, that this charge has been leveled so often and so vociferously by supporters of President Dubya Bush, a Presidency built on personality until the country started crashing down around him. Remember this fun from over the summer, when the GOP platform was rewritten to scrub the references to Bush, found on 91 of the document's 100 pages? This administration campaigned and governed on an idealogy of incompetence and corruption, but was hailed and defended by "conservatives" because Bush had a certain swagger and a cowboy hat.

So spare us the "cult" chatter.

(As an addendum, I'm not a regular reader of ALa, but I do see that she embraced the Newt Gingrich theory of sloganeering-as-energy-policy, meaning that I will continue to not be a regular reader of her blog.)

To all our volunteers, members, and well-wishers, please allow us to once again thank you for the time, effort, and passion that you brought to this election. It truly warmed my heart to see Drexel so engaged and informed about this historic election. To TJ, Emily, Diana, Renato, and everyone else from the campaign, thank you. You guys did an unbelievable job and really made a difference. We showed a lot of skeptics that Drexel isn't a hotbed of apathy, but rather host to a vibrant political community, composed of a broader and more diverse array of majors and students than most other colleges.

Now that we're coming down from the excitement and recovering from the exhaustion, I thought you would want to know exactly what we did. As many of you already know, we were responsible for managing turnout operations in 10 of the 17 divisions of the 24th ward, and to that end you all did an amazing job. There were hundreds of volunteers, thousands of volunteer shifts, and very satisfying results. In 2004, 736 people voted in the 10th division of the 24th ward, which encompasses all of the dorms. That was 51% of registered voters. This year, there were 2054 voters, representing nearly 75% turnout, and 77% of those voters voted for now President-Elect(!) Obama. Thanks to all of your work registering students and getting them to the polls, we tripled turnout over 2004, and did what a lot of people said wouldn't happen.