INSIDE
Food for the fall
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‘Sister’ explores family bonds
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Mustangs lose key C-USA game
Election won’t end the world
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MONDAY
NOVEMBER 5, 2012 MONDAY High 75, Low 46 TUESDAY High 70, Low 50
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 35 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
POLITICS
Courtesy of AP
President Barack Obama zeros in on states that are up for grab.
Battleground states will determine election winner Courtesy of AP
Garrett Haake, an SMU alumnus, is currently an embed NBC reporter for Mitt Romney’s campaign.
SMU alumni active in elections KATY RODEN Sports Editor kroden@smu.edu With the election a day way, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaigns are going at top speed. The same goes for the work schedules of three SMU alumni who scored jobs in the 2012 election. Emily Minner (’05), Garrett Haake (’07) and Morgan Parmet (’09) have all lived and breathed the candidates’ every move since the campaigns started. “I can tell you almost anything about each campaign because I’ve heard their speeches backwards and forwards,” Parmet, NBC’s media manager of digital content, said. Parmet graduated with a major in journalism and with several internships, including those at WFAA, 30 Rock and NBC Mobile, under her belt. Her first
job was on the NBC News Desk in Washington, D.C. Parmet was given opportunities on the MSNBC desk field producing at the White House and in the control room. A promotion came seven months later and Parmet took on the job of pulling footage for the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, MSNBC, NBC News Channel and Meet the Press. Her first political role also came—helping organize Decision 2010 footage. She then became a researcher for the Decision 2012 Political Unit. A normal day on the campaign for Parmet consists of making sure NBC is rolling on all campaign events, helping producers select the best shot or bite for a story and working late during every single debate or convention. “I might work 12 hours a day for six days a week,” she said. Although it requires a lot of hours, Parmet is an expert at
what she does. “I think the coolest part about my job is if a producer calls me in a panic saying, ‘I need Romney saying something about Big Bird’ or ‘Give me [Joe] Biden saying he’ll put people back in chains’ and I immediately know what they’re talking about, what day it is and where to grab it.” Haake, a four-time Emmy nominee, also works for NBC. He is an embed reporter on the Romney campaign. His job focuses on traveling the country to cover the governor’s every move. While working on his degree in journalism at SMU, Haake had the opportunity of an internship at NBC’s Nightly News. This internship, through continued contact, led to his current job. “About a month before graduation, I got a call from my old boss asking me if I wanted to come back for an entry-level job at the network,” Haake told The Daily
Campus in February. Among his many duties in his busy job, Haake tweets his opinions on the campaign and writes news stories for NBC’s First Read. He was unavailable for interviews due to his heavy travel schedule. Minner has been working on the Atlanta CNN Political Desk as assignment editor since Nov. 2011. She agreed with Parmet that a job in political media brings a lot of knowledge. “I love being in the know on everything as it happens,” Minner said. “Working the assignment desk literally puts you at the central hub of all news gathering. We are the ones who find out about the news first.” The second presidential debate at Hofstra University was one of Minner’s favorite memories this year.“I got to see Obama’s Air Force
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HOUSING
Touted BLVD apartments fail to impress students GEENAH KRISHT Contributing Writer gkrisht@smu.edu Students at Southern Methodist University practically raced to sign leasing contracts for the new apartments being built on SMU Boulevard earlier this spring. Although The BLVD apartments are not classified as student housing, the reasonable prices and close proximity to the university have definitely made an impact on the people living there. A large amount of students call the apartments home. Students get the chance to enjoy living amongst people of the same age and enjoy a rambunctious quality of life, which complex management could never have predicted. “The management is not prepared for the type of activities that go on here. They are not
accommodating or flexible to fit the obscene amount of college riffraff that takes place every night,” resident Tori Titmas said. When launching the apartments, the goal was to pinpoint a social area of Dallas without compromising luxury. The sundeck, fitness center, high-end appliances and resident lounge appear luxurious, but many residents have had some not-soluxurious experiences. A main issue tenants have faced is the unreliable elevators. They have been slower than normal and several residents have been stuck inside non-airconditioned elevators. “Not only are the elevators slow as a [convenience issue], but also as a safety issue. Also the elevators do not have A/C,” resident Chris Fisher said. The BLVD apartments pride themselves for being a green,
sustainable community. When building the apartments, the water system, electricity, walls and windows were designed to maximize energy conservation. These features have many advantages, but Fisher believes the lack of insulation in the recycled walls is a reason for the noisy environment. “[The air conditioning] doesn’t work in half of my apartment and the fix for it makes it super loud. [Maintenance] came back to try and fix the noise. Now it’s rattling,” resident Lucy Sidford said. Residents believe that enforcing rules and improving customer service from the managerial side would improve the current living conditions. Several features intended to improve resident life, such as the electronic keys and numbered parking spaces, have supposedly backfired. When asked whether or not
there were serious complaints about the apartment complex, BLVD leasing agent, Randy, said he had not received any complaints. “Our electronic lock malfunctioned and we were locked in our apartment for a few hours until someone was sent to cut the entire lock off the door,” resident Sara Handa said. Handa’s parking situation is equally frustrating “I pay $30 each month for a parking spot and there are always people parking in it so I barely get to use it,” she said. Because of such reoccurring mishaps, residents may reconsider their future plans at the BLVD apartments. Titmas is debating whether or not she will renew her lease at the end of this school year. “So far I am not pleased,” she said.
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REEM ABDELRAZIK KATIE GODBOLD Contributing Writers kgodbold@smu.edu rabdelrazi@smu.edu As the most expensive presidential election comes to an end, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney are zeroing in on the states that are still up for grabs. Their focus is on the battleground, or swing states, which are worth 95 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election. North Carolina, Colorado, Ohio and Wisconsin are some states that will be facing a whirlwind of last minute speeches and campaign ads that are enough to overwhelm a nation. Obama, who is fighting to stay in office four years after his historic victory, is focusing on the Midwestern states that won him the election last time. Romney, who’s in his second run for the presidency is trying to secure critical states like Florida and Virginia in the closing days. But will all this campaigning make a difference in the outcome? North Carolina In 2008, Obama was the first Democrat to win North Carolina since Carter in 1976, but this year the state is proving to be much more of a challenge for Obama than it was four years ago. Catherine Worth, a SMU political science major and a native of North Carolina, believes that her state will vote Republican because it traditionally has in the past. According to Politico, this may very well be the case as Romney leads with 49.8 percent and Obama falls short with 46 percent in the polls. Worth notes that her state is “for the most part rural, with ‘old money’ in the cities, and several military bases which all skew Republican.” Worth also said she thinks North Carolina will choose Romney because “young voters are much less excited about Obama than they were in 2008.” She said that the North Carolina economy is hurting and that the Republican voters were not as
fired up about McCain in 2008 as they are about Romney now. Florida The Sunshine State was at the center of the controversial 2000 election, when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by only a few hundred votes and a recount was called. Florida’s northern half tends to be quite conservative, but is interspersed with heavily Democratic cities like Miami. Florida native and journalism major at SMU, Billy Embody doesn’t think anything like what happened in 2000 will happen again. Embody has been following the 2012 campaign closely by monitoring a few news sites each day to stay up to date on the election, and said he believes that Romney will win Florida. As for the popular vote, he said Romney will be the winner because Romney, “has made the best connection with the elderly, has swung enough of the minority vote to his side and will bring Florida the best chance to get back to being a successful state.” All those things will be pertinent to do to win this state, as it has a high percentage of Latinos and senior citizens, for which issues like immigration, Medicare and social security are important. Currently, Romney is leading this state in the polls by 0.3 percent. Virginia Unlike Worth and Embody, Ginna Wilbanks, from Virginia, believes President Obama might win her state this year because he won it in 2008. It and North Carolina were the only two southern states - other than Florida – to vote for Obama in the last election. Over the past 50 years, Virginia generally favored the Republican candidate and now Romney is leading the state by just 0.5 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.com. “It was a shock when Obama won Virginia’s vote in the 2008 election,” Wilbanks said. She believes that since 2008, Virginia has shifted slightly back towards the right, but it is just too close to tell right now who will end up being the victor of her state. Colorado Since the 1972 election, the state of Colorado has voted for
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