17.2 The Decider

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Washington University

Political Review 17.2 | October 2012 | wupr.org

THE DECIDER

WUPR DEBATE

14 33 19 77 11

47 67 22 16 71

52 7 21 25 3 43 70 82 35 72 60 32 28 87 FREE

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How to Play: Each square has its own rule. Watch the debate and cross off a square anytime that square’s rule is met. If you get 5 in a row in any direction, please head directly to the nearest bar and consume your sorrows.

14. Each candidate is given a mulligan 47. Obama sends Romney’s fate to a ‘death panel’ 52. Either candidate wears more than 1 flag pin 7. The moderator smacks a cameraman to feel important again 21. Legitimate talks about how to reign in federal spending and increase revenues are had (no passive voice) 33. The audience boos one of the candidates comments 67. Either candidate agrees with their opponent on a key governing matter.

25. Romney mentions his 14.1% tax rate.

3. Obama talks about how he closed Gitmo 43. Romney talks about why universal healthcare was a such a good idea that only Massachusetts could have it.

19. Biden shows up drunk 22. Biden shows up sober

70. Either candidate answers a question in Spanish.

82. Obama is asked what mosque he attends 77. TV cameras catch a glimpse of Romney’s ‘secret underwear’ 16. Romney mentions Rafalca 35. Both candidates include the phrase “American values” in an answer and don’t explain what those are exactly 72. Either candidate explains why military dominance of the moon is essential to national security 60. The founding fathers are misquoted/interpreted 11. Statistics are said as facts but are instead more ‘factish’ 71. Either candidate sacrifices a goat to help their chances with pagan voters 32. You feel like you need to take a shower after watching 28. You make it through the whole debate without once saying. “Well that’s bullshit…”

87. Paul Ryan shows up dressed as Batman Content by Seth Einbinder Designed by Matt Callahan

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Editors’ Notes WUPRites, During the fall of a presidential election year in the United States, there are a few certainties, a few inevitable reference points we can use to navigate the daily onslaught of “what is happening in the world.” There will be massive amounts of U.S. presidential election coverage, both at home and abroad. There will be debates galore – between official candidates, enmeshed within the vast web of entertainment-punditry-journalism, and amongst friends. There will certainly be ups and downs, gaffes and triumphs, and, come one day in November, a president.

The framework of an election provides a view of the American polity that is at once illuminating and deceiving. The campaign trail can reveal what Americans care about; or perhaps more importantly, the careful talking points reveal what particular groups of people who want to run the government think Americans care about. Is this perception accurate?

What do Americans care most about? Is there reason to speak of a unified, coherent block of people? Our writers have taken up the challenge in the following pages. In the hopes of sifting through the polls and the pundits, we ask here: Who is the American voter?

Of course, as with so much else, these four-year reference points are particularly revealing for what they fail to encompass. While the election rages on at home, warfare rages on in Aleppo, Syria. China progresses further in the affairs of the Central Asian steppes, and Germany struggles with stability in the Eurozone. And as our writers remind us, news isn’t solely pushed forward by nations or revolutions. Many people’s lives are drastically shaped by more fluid happenings like the burgeoning organ trade industry, or gold mining practices in South America.

We therefore invite you to read on, to reflect, and while we hope you find some answers within these pages, to take on these challenging questions for yourself. As a reader, you are truly The Decider.

Editors-in-Chief Anna Applebaum Siddharth Krishnan

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Table of Contents

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Teachers: The Spoiled Victims of America Kim Gaspar

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The Inval(ID) Vote: Why All Voters Should Need Identification Shira Weissman

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The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Voter Fraud Steven Perlberg

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A Letter to the GOP Gavin Frisch

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Taking Women’s Health Seriously Moira Moynihan

10 Bootstraps Are So Passé Charlotte Jeffries 11 Gary Johnson and the “Wasted Vote” Marshal Mayer

13 The Select Few Lisa Soumekh 14 Feeding Frenzy Andrew Luskin

22 The Germany Problem Bart Kudrzycki 23 David Cameron’s Future Hangs in the Balance Rory Scothorne

16 The Return of Bubba: What Barack Can Learn from Bill’s Latest Comeback Ben Lash

24 Desperation, Exploitation, and the Global Organ Trade Sonya Schoenberger

17 Mitt Romney, Mary Sue Jash Jacobs 18 The Meaningful Vote: Why Being Informed on the Issues isn’t Enough Kaity Shea Cullen

25 South America’s Destructive Gold Rush Noah Eby 26 A New Great Game in Central Asia?

Fahim Masoud

19 The Catholic Vote Molly McMgregor 20 Energetic about Energy?

Far From It Nick Siow 21 Who are the 6 Percent?

Fanghui Zhao

27 Right of Return:Facts vs.

Fellings Gideon Palte 28 Local Columns

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Staff List Editors-in-Chief: Anna Applebaum Siddharth Krishnan Executive Director: Peter Birke Programming Director: Molly McGragor Staff Editors: Nick Hinsch Raja Krishna Moira Moynihan Gabe Rubin Director of Design: Max Temescu Layout Team: Mitch Atkin Ismael Fofana Beenish Qayam Emily Santos Fanghui Zhao Charlotte Jefferies Henry Osman Art Coordinator: Max Temescu Managing Copy Editor: Stephen Rubino Copy Editors: Sonya Schoenberger Celia Rozanski Abby Kerfoot Miriam Thorne Molly Prothero Katie Stillman Krupa Desai Henry Osman Curan Hennessey Jon Luskin Michael Greenburg Rory Scothorne Trevor Leuzinger Alex Bluestone

Director of New Media: Taka Yamaguchi Treasurer: Gavin Frisch Staff Writers: Michael Cohen Neel Desai Wills Dobbs-Allsopp Seth Einbinder Jay Evans Nahuel Fefer Josh Jacobs Abby Kerfoot Kevin Kieselbach Mike Kovacs Bart Kudrzycki Ben Lash Martin Lockman Andrew Luskin Lennox Mark Fahim Masoud Molly McGregor Razi Safi Rory Scothorne Kaity Shea Cullen Nick Siow Lisa Soumekh Front Cover Illustration: Ariella Elovic Back Cover Illustration: Esther Hamburger Editorial Illustrators: Mitch Atkin Kelsey Brod Alexandra Chiu Kelsey Eng Esther Hamburger Chris Hohl Dara Katzenstein Lauren Kolm Colette LeMaire Simin Lim Michelle Nahmad Carly Nelson Gretchen Oldelm Katie Olson

Grace Preston Jen Siegel Mia Salamone Board of Advisors: Robin Hattori Gephardt Institute for Public Service Professor Bill Lowry Political Science Department Unless otherwise noted, all images are from MCT Campus.

The Washington University Political Review is a studentled organization committed to encouraging and fostering awareness of political issues on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. To do this, we shall remain dedicated to providing friendly and open avenues of discussion and debate both written and oral on the campus for any and all political ideas, regardless of the leanings of those ideas.

Submissions: editor@wupr.org

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By The Numbers 1995

235

67%

most recent year with a lower US median income (adjusted for inflation).

number of times Obama said uhh in the first presidential debate.

of registered voters who thought that Romney won the first debate (according to a CNN poll).

386,000

7.8%

100

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ upwards revision on job creation between April 2011 and March 2012

current unemployment rate

meters inside Turkish soil that 2 Syrian mortars hit, prompting military retaliation

30

14

60%

opposition parties backing Henrique Capriles electoral challenge to Hugo Chavez

years Hugo Chavez has been in power

of its value that the Iranian rial has lost in the last year.

49.6%

47%

of births made up by nonHispanic whites between July 2010 and July 2011

of people that, according to Mitt Romney, he will never convince to take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

National

Teachers: The Spoiled Victims of America Kim Gaspar

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t is hard to believe only a year and a half separates Governor Walker’s standoff with the Wisconsin teachers’ unions over collective bargaining rights and the most recent Chicago Teachers Union strike that closed Chicago Public Schools for seven days and kept 350,000 kids out of the classroom.

Events like these have increasingly forced the issues of union rights and education reform into the public eye. These discussions are by no means stale, as new policy ideas and contract renegotiations constantly breed new opinions of public employee unions. In the past 18 months, public sentiment toward teachers and unions has shifted back and forth as events like the CTU strike provide more insight into the messy world of union rights. And I’ve shifted too.

Unsurprisingly, these discussions are radically polarized along the lines of political ideologies. On one side, there are the Democratic pro-union activists who believe teachers are belittled by the government and work hard for their modest salary. On the opposite side, there are the Republican businesspeople that witness the private sector struggling while teachers are safely insulated from the economic crisis by their wroughtiron employee contracts. Is there any hope of reconciliation between these two interest groups? If you had asked me that question back in February 2011, I would have vehemently responded in defense of the teachers’ unions and condemned Governor Walker as just another Republican politician obsessed with cutting costs at the expense of critical public institutions, such as schools. Now, 18 months later, ask me the same question, and I’d be hard pressed to come up with an inkling of sympathy for the teachers’ unions.

What changed? It would seem that such a severe shift in my loyalties must have been triggered by an incident equally as extreme.

In actuality, my crossover stems from something that has remained fairly consistent throughout this time span: the economy.

From the time of Governor Walker’s standoff with the teachers’ unions up until today, the economy’s perpetual stagnation has directly coincided with my declining support for teachers’ unions. I look around and I see my peers graduating with limited job prospects,

my parents and their friends delaying retirement, and others who are being laid off because their employers can no longer afford to pay their salaries. At the same time, teachers’ unions fight reductions to salary increases, complain about the limited staffing of nurses, counselors, and librarians, and are outraged over new evaluation procedures that threat-

The teachers’ unions are portraying themselves as victims to gain public support, but to what extent are they suffering any real injustice? en to usurp a long established veteran’s hierarchy that ensures the newest teachers are the first to get the ax. The majority of private sector workers are not permitted such luxurious job security. Are the teachers’ unions really living in the same world as the rest of us?

The teachers’ unions are portraying themselves as victims to gain public support,

but to what extent are they suffering any real injustice? According to Time Magazine, Chicago Public Schools’ teachers are some of the highest paid in country, with a starting salary of $49,000 and an average salary of $76,000. Up until the new contract, CPS had one of the shortest school days and shortest school years in the country. Despite the fact that they are amongst the highest paid in their profession and work the fewest hours, the Chicago Teachers Union still fought for salary increases that they felt they rightly deserved.

After negotiations, the CTU and CPS agreed to three years of salary raises at 3, 2, and 2 percent with a possible fourth year at 3 percent.

How the district will finance these salaries remains unresolved. School districts throughout the country are suffering from severe budget contractions and are constantly looking for ways to maintain education quality while staying financially afloat. The federal and state governments do not make this easy for them. School districts are promised grant money that they budget for years in advance only to find out that the government can’t, and won’t, pay the full amount.

Last year the Chicago Tribune reported that Illinois owed its public schools $981 million, and proposed budget cuts meant that the school districts would have to shoulder even more costs. Some districts attempt referendums to raise property taxes as a greater source of revenue, but trying to raise taxes in the midst of this economic crisis is a losing battle. The school districts are bled dry, but the teachers’ union is relentless.

I sincerely believe teaching is one of the highest, noblest professions and that teachers’ salaries and benefits are fully deserved; but that being said, poor economic growth has persisted to a point where teachers’ unions are asking too much from districts that have too little. The teachers’ unions should not be fighting the district for money they don’t have, but rather targeting the state and federal government to make due on the tax money that was never rightfully handed over to the school districts. Strikes, like that of the CTU, do little to alleviate the longterm debt problems that burden our nation’s schools. The teachers, in their insatiable quest for greater benefits, have only succeeded in deflecting attention away from the true victims: the students.

Kim Gaspar is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kgaspar@wustl.edu

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National

The Inval(ID) Vote: Why All Voters Should Need Identification Shira Weissmann

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oter identification bills are being proposed in several states, including Missouri, and have already been passed in many others. With the bills’ widespread commotion, there must be something more to it than the overarching discrimination seen by those opposing the bill. It is difficult to side with those publically in favor of voter ID regulation because the potential racism and prejudice underlying the bill’s initiation is hard to ignore those and harder to defend. No one wants to be “that racist.” But, for many who support the bill, this is a misnomer. Yes, this bill can potentially cause discrimination, but those who support the bill are not necessarily discriminatory. The bill’s potential for racism will not, therefore, be the point of this article. There is another overwhelmingly overlooked side: requiring voter identification is not a new phenomenon among democratic nations, and it can lead to a more legitimate U.S. democracy. And just to preface this article, I will not claim there is rampant voter fraud; I will, however attempt to illuminate the overshadowed benefits and forgotten necessities of voter ID laws.

To quote President Obama, “Voting is a fundamental right—and when we make our voices heard, we can keep moving our nation forward, building a fairer, stronger, and more just America.” A fundamental right must not be confused with a human right. Voting is a fundamental right and responsibility of United States citizens and no one else. With this responsibility comes certain obligatory regulations and requirements, such as presenting proof of citizenship to vote.

This leads to the supposedly significant issue of voter fraud. I will not argue that voter fraud is an issue in the United States because any statistic or study indicates otherwise. I will, however, argue that not requiring a photo ID at the polls opens the door for potential voter fraud. It has occurred only on rare occasions, and if history is any indication, it seems unlikely in the near future. But who are we to guess at what the future will bring? The government has its smooth times and its rocky times, and during those unstable times, the desire to slip in an extra ballot seems much more justifiable. The slippery slope argument is old and used, but it remains relevant so long as our current system still leaves room to commit fraud. We cannot be true proponents of our own society if we cannot even guarantee the legitimacy of our own elections.

If one needs a photo identification to apply for welfare, shouldn’t most or many of these people already own an ID? According to David Agren in USA Today, “National identity cards [used at the polls] have been issued for years in France, Poland, Singapore, Mexico, and Brazil to prove citizenship,” so requiring photo identification is hardly a new concept in democratic countries.

In the case of Mexico, Agren continues, “The credential proved so good at guaranteeing the identification of electors that it became the country’s preferred credential, one now possessed by just about

every adult Mexican.” Its widespread acceptance deepened democracy in that nation and increased the power of the individual voice.

The United States can only benefit from further legitimizing its elections, elevating our democratic standards. The United States is an exemplary democratic country; let’s maintain this status and not be overshadowed by other democracies that have already implemented this basic policy.

If recognizing other countries’ successes is unconvincing, look to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. In most cases, when buying a gun, it is necessary to show a photo ID. Comparably, voting should require photo identification. Of course, owning a gun and voting differ on many levels; guns provide the power to take a life.

Yet, voting and gun ownership are more similar than they seem on the surface. The act of voting bestows the responsibility of deciding the members of government, and in turn, the direction and policy of the United States as a whole. Both votes and guns decide the outcome of another’s future, on an individual or the national level. The government can and should implement regulations and restrictions concerning constitutional rights in order to safeguard those rights.

Photo identification is also necessary for many other aspects of life, such as applying for welfare, purchasing prescription drugs, obtaining medical care and opening bank accounts among many others.

Possession of a photo ID can only help each individual in undergoing future transactions, and several bills subsidize the price or are available for free. One of the main arguments against photo identification is that it will inhibit or discourage many impoverished people from voting, that it is socioeconomically biased. But if one needs a photo identification to apply for welfare, shouldn’t most or many of these people already own identification?

Looking at Georgia, where a bill has already been implemented, there have actually been voter increases since its enactment. To quote the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “Turnout among black and Hispanic voters increased from 2006 to 2010, dramatically outpacing population growth for those groups over the same period.” Statistics, as calculated by anti-discrimination leagues in Georgia, have shown no effects on minority votes, and in Indiana, opponents of voter ID have not been able to find a single disenfranchised voter. I hope that the potentially discriminatory aspects of this bill backfire, and that its passage causes an influx of voters comprised of the very people the “mean, old Republicans” are supposedly trying to keep away from the polls. I do, however, believe, after looking to other nations’ success, after comparing the right to vote with the right to bear arms, and after viewing current effects of the bills’ implementation in several states, that requiring a photo identification to vote is necessary for the legitimacy of our elections today and for the future.

Shira Weissmann is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at shira.weissmann@wustl.edu

National

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Voter Fraud Steven Perlberg

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he myth goes like this: scores of miscreant ineligible voters head to the polls every election – well, especially in 2008 – and, like a Chicago political machine, destroy the sanctity of our democracy with rampant, fiendish voter fraud. In order to preserve our honor, our very freedom, is it too much to ask that we require would-be voters to show ID at the polls?

The answer is yes. Yes it is. Voter fraud, the kind that conservatives attempt to legislate against, patently does not exist. Efforts to prevent legal voters, whether Democratic ones or not, from reaching the polls is itself defrauding our democracy.

Laws requiring government-issued ID in order to vote have germinated in various state legislatures, including Missouri, for the past decade. But it wasn’t until recently that the effort became so centrally coordinated. Top GOP officials – frustrated by the mass of new voters that put Obama over the top in 2008 – embarked on a new push for stricter voter laws. Thanks to a conservative leviathan known as the American Legislative Exchange Council, GOP legislators were essentially handed draft legislation to bring to their state floors. Then, emboldened by their 2010 midterm election gains, Republicans saw to it that these measures were incredibly successful in over a dozen states.

In the past two years, Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, and other states have implemented laws that partially disenfranchise the very demographic – young voters and people of color – who helped catapult Obama to the presidency.

To hear conservatives describe it, the voter ID crusade marks a righteous battle against increasingly unbridled fraud at the polls. Leaving aside that empirical falsehood for a second, impersonating someone else on November 6th would be a terrible election strategy. At best, you’d get one essentially meaningless incremental vote for your candidate. At worst, your life is ruined. Voter fraud is a felony punishable by 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice concludes that, statistically speaking, you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit voter fraud.

Voter fraud is also rarely observed. Between 2002 and 2007, the Justice Department did not prosecute one single person for impersonating someone else at the polls, and this is really the only kind of election fraud an ID law could stop. In essence, voter ID laws are either a solution in search of a problem or something much more nefarious. Nevertheless, conservatives have effectively conflated voter fraud with election fraud – errors in the poll books or registration record, for example – which is a real phenomenon, but one not remedied by forcing prospective voters to present photo identification.

Voter ID laws do nothing to curb fraud, but do everything to prevent legally registered Americans from exercising their right to vote.

“You need a photo ID to get on an airplane,” goes the conservative voter ID canard. “Why shouldn’t you need one to vote?” Who needs the facts if you can construct such a convincing narrative? Of course, the problem here is that flying Delta isn’t an anonymous constitutional right – but that misses the point of the larger success of conservative dogma. It just sounds like a crisp and cogent narrative here. If GOP-lead legislatures across the country are targeting oftenmarginalized Democratic voters under the guise of a non-existent voter fraud epidemic, why can’t liberals pitch that magnetic story?

“It’s hard to boil it down into a clever sentence,” according to Jeff Smith, a former Washington University professor who served in the Missouri legislature. “Centuries of slavery and discrimination lead to a disadvantaged class of southern black sharecroppers who flee the South in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. They don’t have driver’s licenses.

Now they’re 85 years old, have moved a dozen times, and need to track down their birth certificate?” Sounds like a breeze.

The fact is, voter ID laws target a very specific cross-section of society: the 11% of eligible American voters that lack government-issued photo ID. Importantly, poor, minority, and elderly voters – often Democratically-leaning demographics – are especially likely to fall into that segment: 25% of African-Americans, 16% of Hispanics, and 18% of Americans over the age of 65 don’t have photo ID, according to the Brennan Center. Advocates will say that voter ID states offer government-issued ID free of charge, so just go get one, silly! That’s oversimplifying the case according to Washington University professor Jon Rogowski. “To get a driver’s license, for instance, you typically need a couple forms of ID, like a birth certificate or passport. Those documents can be expensive to track down if you don’t already have them, both in terms of time and money. So while free IDs are nice, they don’t go far enough to address the inability of some people to access the documents they need to get the IDs.” It’s also not exactly easy to transport yourself to an ID-issuing office when, by definition, you do not have a driver’s license. In their extensive study, the Brennan Center notes, “More than 10 million eligible voters live more than 10 miles from their nearest state IDissuing office open more than two days a week.” In Wisconsin, Alabama, and Mississippi, less than half of ID-issuing offices are open five days a week. Good luck if you’re working full-time in Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, or Wisconsin, where no office stays open on Saturday. And when open, office hours can be comically idiosyncratic.

The ID-issuing office in Sauk City, Wisconsin is only open on the fifth Wednesday of the month. To be sure, only four months have five Wednesdays this year.

All told, a voter ID law could hit quite close to home for Washington University students. Missouri would already have a voter ID law in place if not for the state’s voter-friendly courts. For years, the conservative legislature has attempted to implement stricter laws, including the rejection of student IDs at the polls altogether. “Students would have to show Missouri or state-issued driver’s licenses or a passport,” says Rose Windmiller, the assistant vice chancellor for gov-

Voter ID laws do nothing to curb fraud. ernment and community relations. “You have to be concerned about any kind of fraud, but we have been voting in this manner for many years and there hasn’t been any indication of widespread fraud on the part of voter registration or at the polls.” Washington University: On November 6th, do your civic duty and go vote. While you still can.

Steven Perlberg is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Email him at sperlberg@wustl.edu and follow him on Twitter @ stevenperlberg

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National

A Letter to the GOP Gavin Frisch |

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Illustration by Alex Chiu

ear Chairman Priebus, I have to admit, I am not happy with the way things have been going these past few years with the GOP. My disappointment goes beyond the party’s inability to run respectable candidates for public office. It goes beyond the crazies like Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin who make ridiculous claims about rape. It goes right to the core of the party’s platform, operations, and values.

Two very important things before I point out some major problems. First, I want to make myself clear. It is inexcusable that Republicans are trailing in the polls. Unemployment is still above 8%, the government has adopted drastic quantitative easing methods, and public debt is soaring with no end in sight. This should be a favorable climate for Republicans. Even though every other phrase Mitt Romney utters is a gaffe, there is no valid explanation for a second Obama term and a Democratic majority in the Senate.

Second, my enthusiasm for Republican candidates has never been lower, and I am strongly considering voting for a third party candidate. I volunteered for John McCain in 2008 and supported Republicans across the board in the 2010 midterms because of Republicans’ economic and foreign policies, the promise of smaller government, and my hatred of Obamacare. I identify as a Republican because our political system encourages two parties, and the Democrats’ solutions to solve the US’s major problems are delusional and naïve.

There is a lot that Republicans can do. Yet at times, it seems like Republicans are their own worst enemy. Are Republicans intentionally trying to dissuade all non-white older males from supporting them? Republicans are scaring away women with the emphasis on anti-abortion policies, young voters with their anti-gay marriage views, and Hispanics with their inability to effectively communicate their immigration policies. It is time to realize Republican hypocrisy when it comes to social issues: Republicans are okay with the government telling Americans they can’t have abortions or marry the person they love, while completely ignoring the fact that small government is the party’s most fundamental value. If Republicans don’t make a change soon, the party may go extinct.

Asking for major changes to social policies will alienate much of the Republican base, and I actually believe that some Republican social issues should be kept as part of the party platform in order to remain competitive in the South. The big problem is that these social issues need to be a distant priority. Republicans should focus their efforts on debating issues that give them an advantage over their Democrat counterparts – which the debating of social issues fails to do. In a recent Gallup poll, Independents supported legalizing same-sex marriage by a 17-point spread, and these independents are a voting block that Republicans must win to win elections.

To make the Republican Party more competitive, Republicans must focus on the issues that give them an edge. They must emphasize core principles that resonate with the average voter such as smaller government, lower taxes, and pro-energy policies. I want to hear more “Drill, baby, drill!” I want to hear “Read my lips: no new taxes” like it’s 1988. I don’t want to hear “My job is not to worry about those people.”

“I want to hear more “Drill, baby, drill!” I want to hear “Read my lips: no new taxes’” like its 1988.

I don’t want to hear “My job is not to worry about those people.”

Republicans running for Congress and the White House can use the 10th amendment as a way to defer controversial issues to state governments. Think about it for a second: it is a win-win. Republicans can emphasize their belief in smaller government while avoiding issues that are either nationally popular or easily manipulated by the liberal media. Let issues like same sex marriage and abortion (which Americans in my generation generally view more liberally) be decided at the state level.

As for the partisan battle over the Bush tax cuts, it is time for Republicans to attack Democrats on Obama’s desire to increase taxes on dividends and capital gains. If anything these taxes need to be lowered to encourage investment. Republicans can win this partisan battle by informing and educating Americans on the benefits of lower taxes.

Once the Bush tax cuts expire and the tax rates rise, stock prices will drop significantly as the price of a stock is the present value of all future dividends.

I understand that my plea for change will go unnoticed. Be warned: if Republicans continue to be inept social martyrs, the party will die. When GOP candidates and Mitt Romney get trounced in elections on November 6th, I won’t be upset like I was in 2008. As bleak as the next four years look under a continued Obama Administration, it may actually be a blessing in disguise for Republicans for two reasons. First, Obama and the Democrats will have four more years to dig themselves in a deep enough hole that no one will remember George W. Bush. Second, Republicans will have four years to realize how to not alienate half of the country and nominate a candidate for president that isn’t a notorious flip-flopper. Republicans must gain more support from Hispanics, women, and young voters in 2014 and 2016 in order to have a strong chance of winning the White House and taking a majority in the Senate. Sincerely, Gavin Frisch

Gavin Frisch is a senior in the Olin School of Business. He can be reached at gavin7f@ gmail.com.

National

Taking Women’s Health Seriously Moira Moynihan

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lanned Parenthood President Cecile Richards may have put it best at this year’s Democratic National Convention when she said that the 2012 election season has been “like a bad episode of Mad Men.” For the amount of times each candidate has uttered the word “birth control”, you would think we were still arguing about Griswold v. Connecticut. Here’s the problem: contraception is an economic issue. It affects more than just women’s personal financial viability, but also the economy of the nation as a whole. Birth control is good for our national economy, and talking about it as just a “women’s issue” fails to account for the potential benefits that easy access to birth control has on our nation as a whole.

Historically, contraception has played a substantial economic role in helping narrow the gender pay gap and placing more women in the work force. Comparing the wages of women who were in their twenties in the 1960s, when the pill became legal, against those born just ten years earlier shows substantial economic gains for women, partially thanks to the pill. A National Bureau of Economic Research study, “The Opt in Revolution? Contraception and the Gender Gap in Wages,” found that the pill accounted for at least 10% of women’s wage gains in the 1980s and more than 30% of their gains in the 1990s. Women’s ability to delay childbearing made job training and education more accessible, enabling them more successful participants in the labor force.

Women’s role as mothers complicates their role in the workforce, and being able to control how and when to have children contributes substantially to a woman’s economic viability. While a challenge for all mothers, the problem of balancing work and children is compounded when women don’t have access to contraception and have children before they may be ready. Because contraception gives women the ability to delay childbearing and invest in their careers, it increases their participation in the workforce. As women expand the work force, they also increase GDP. The “Gender Inequality, Growth and Global Aging” report by Goldman Sachs estimates that closing the gap between male and female workforce participation would improve the US GDP by as much as 9%. In addition, a 2011 research project from McKinsey and Company found that women can be attributed for up to 25% of GDP growth between 1970 and 2009, saying “GDP growth is driven by two factors—an expanding workforce and rising productivity. Back in the 1970s when women and a huge cohort of baby boomer men were entering the workforce, 65% of GDP growth arose from workforce expansion.”

While the ability for women to have personal, medical and economic autonomy would seem reason enough to increase access to contraception, increasing access to contraception would also remove the economic burden of paying for unintended pregnancies.

A Guttmacher Institute finding shows that unintended pregnancies cost taxpayers $11 billion annually. What’s more, two-thirds of all unintended pregnancies are publically funded, and in some states it’s as much as 80% of unintended births. Investing in prevention would save enormous amounts of money later on: “Investing in publicly funded family planning to help women avoid unintended pregnancy has a proven track record: In the absence of the services provided

at publicly funded family planning centers, the costs of unintended pregnancy would be 60% higher than they are today.” We invest in countless public health preventative measures, and contraception should be no different. The Brookings Institute found that every dollar spent on pregnancy prevention produced taxpayer savings of between two to six dollars. This investment is especially crucial because unintended pregnancies are disproportionately high among poor communities – women who couldn’t afford contraception on their own in the first place.

Romney has infamously promised to defund Planned Parenthood, and his campaign has been run on a generally anti-woman platform. For all his talk about fixing the fledgling Obama economy, he seems to be blatantly ignoring the economic role of Planned Parenthood and women’s health services. The same Brookings Institute research found two of the main problems contributing to unintended pregnancies were a misunderstanding of contraception and lack of access to it (both physically and economically). These two barriers could be substantially ameliorated if we continue to invest in family planning. This investment is a proven solution, and committing to it publically, by the government, would be economically beneficial to

Because contraception gives women the ability to delay childbearing and invest in their careers, it increases their participation in the workforce. As women expand the work force, they also increase GDP. the nation as a whole: “There is strong evidence that expansions in access to publicly subsidized family planning services can affect rates of contraceptive use and unintended childbearing.”

If this election is one centered on the economy, as Romney claims it to be, women’s issues need to remain on the table. Though the Republican platform has tried to frame women’s issues as “distractions” from the real problems at hand, the truth is that women’s issues are economic issues. The GOP has struggled for a long time to garner women’s votes, and campaigning on an anti-contraception platform has not helped their cause. Women are crucial in deciding elections. In 2008, nearly 10 million more women voted than men.

Contraception plays an integral role in the health of women, but also in the health of the national economy. It’s not just another “silly” social issue. It’s time to take women seriously, and stop campaigning in a way that says our interests aren’t important to the nation as a whole.

Contraception is a basic right, and it’s one that women won’t forget about come November.

Moira Moynihan is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

She can be reached at moira.moynihan@wustl.edu

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10

National

Bootstraps Are So Passé Charlotte Jeffries

Let’s Talk Footwear Before the era of the 1%, most individuals with a fortune earned his or her way in the same manner as Christian Louboutin - with footwear! More specifically with boots featuring straps. Everybody, no matter how rich or how poor, had a pair of cowboy boots in their closet. It was with that pair of boots that everybody was expected to make their way in the world. Do you need to eat? Better pull on your bootstraps and find a job. Do you have a sick child but no health insurance? You should probably pull on your bootstraps, raise your credentials immediately and find a job with better benefits before your kid dies. Want to borrow a pair of your friend’s cute nude-colored slingbacks? Forget about it. Pull on your bootstraps and earn enough money to buy your own pair!

Conservatives often lament that you hardly ever even see bootstraps in shop windows anymore, let alone on actual people. Yet the real reason that you never see bootstraps anymore is because they are primarily found on cowboy boots – and we are no longer a nation of Thomas Jefferson’s beloved yeoman.

Let’s Talk Hypothetically Let’s say that, hypothetically, the majority of Americans who argue for a pure meritocracy are white, economically well off, and relatively oblivious to how the majority of Americans live.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that those same Americans refuse to acknowledge how much the success of their parents impacted their own ability to achieve success. They may also not understand that not everybody inherits money or a home from their parents, or that some people must go to college entirely on loans.

These kinds of Americans forget that they were an investment.

Their individual success was the dividend.

Let’s say that, hypothetically, those who wholeheartedly believe in the American meritocracy tend to also be those who believe that Christianity should be the standard by which all legislative propositions are measured. It’s a general consensus that Jesus Christ was all for the redistribution of wealth. Loaves and fishes, anybody?

Let’s say that, hypothetically, a lot of the arguments for pulling oneself up by the bootstraps are evident of the established structural violence and institutionalized racism. People who hear the statistics about minorities and wealth and still argue for “meritocracy” believe that the minorities are to blame for their socioeconomic status. Hypothetically.

People who still believe in the flawed American ethos of meritocracy will probably assert that those bottom-earners have nobody to blame for the situation but their own lack of hard work.

Let’s Talk Numbers

Let’s Talk Real Talk

Popular styles only make sense in the context in which they’re presented. Femininity was idolized in the 1950s so we saw the rise in the cinched-waist poodle skirt. In the late 1960s, acid became increasingly popular and stringent organization less so, resulting in the unfortunate rise in popularity of tie-dye. The 1990s saw a generation that was aimless and angry and liked punk rock; ergo combat boots.

We need to similarly start tailoring expectations for success to the way the world is today. According to Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, one percent of the American population owns about 40% of the nation’s wealth while only owing about 5% of the nation’s debt. A study conducted by the Social Security Administration concluded that those in the top-earning bracket are expected to live 5-7 years longer than those at the bottom earning brackets. People who still believe in the flawed American ethos of meritocracy will probably assert that those bottom-earners have nobody to blame for the situation but their own lack of hard work. After all, they should have just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

Yet we can’t all do that, and it’s irresponsible to mandate that we do. The 2010 census reported that 21% of American children live in poverty, and additionally that white Americans have over 20 times more wealth than Latino and black Americans, even after adjusted for population size. These differences have real impact – you can’t change your race or what economic class you’re born into.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for wearing boots with bootstraps. I understand that hard work often can, and usually does, pay off. I understand that I should try and earn what I have. However, I also understand that I am fortunate enough to have parents who could afford to provide me with good health care, a safe home, and opportunities for a stellar education. I understand that no matter how hard I work, I am also ultimately lucky.

Deciding that 47% of Americans are greedy and selfish because they can’t afford to feed themselves or provide their children with medical treatment on their own is unconscionable. Deciding that 47% of Americans need to change into boots because of a refusal to comprehend how the world looks today is much more than a crime against fashion. It’s a crime against the country.

Charlotte Jeffries is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.

She can be reached at charlotte.jeffries@wustl.edu

National

Gary Johnson and the “Wasted Vote” Marshall Mayer

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hings are so clear when you can break them down into numbers. A 2011 Gallup poll reported that at least 50% of Americans say marijuana should be legalized, and legalization measures are being voted on in three states this election cycle.

This past June, Gallup also reported 66% of Americans believe immigration is a good thing. 54% of Americans polled a few weeks ago say the government is doing too much that could be done by individuals and businesses, and about 50% say the government has too much power. And according to a Times/CBS Poll, a whopping 68% of Americans were against all or part of Obamacare as of June. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney line up with these views perfectly.

It boils down to a phrase that most readers

socially liberal than Obama and more fiscally conservative than Romney. He has promised to balance the federal budget, not by some far off date, but by the end of 2013. How? By vetoing any bill whose revenue does not exceed the cost. He wants to reform Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security so they will remain solvent for years to come, and veto any form of Internet censorship. He is the only candidate who will oppose the renewal of the PATRIOT Act, cut wasteful military spending, and focus on domestic issues before we start pushing an agenda abroad.

So why has no one heard of him? The media has generally ignored him, but not without good cause. Third parties are taboo.

The system we live in is so engrained in Republican vs. Democrat that we fail to rec-

I think a wasted vote is voting for somebody that you don’t believe in.

- Gary Johnson have either uttered themselves or heard from friends: “Well, I’m fiscally conservative, but I’m socially liberal.”

A few weeks ago, I made the first political donation of my life. You have probably heard little, if anything, about him. He has made few major headlines. In fact, major news sources barely mention him at all. Yes, the wildly popular two-term former governor from New Mexico, Gary Johnson, is the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States. His stances on issues such as marijuana and the size of government line up with the viewpoints of many fiscally conservative, socially liberal Americans.

The two terms that Governor Johnson served as the Republican Governor of New Mexico earned him a nickname: Governor Veto. A recent Fox Business article reported that he vetoed 750 bills, cut taxes a total of 14 times, and left the office with a $1 billion budget surplus. He describes himself as more

ognize, or at the very least fail to act upon that recognition, that we have cordoned ourselves into two opposing camps with opposing viewpoints along a very wide spectrum of topics. Our founders considered the right to vote an almost sacred act, one that allows citizens to exercise a freedom of choice to best represent the people. This sacred act did not include political parties, entities that George Washington predicted in his Farewell Address would “become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” But individuals today, when they hear about Gary Johnson, usually respond with a comment that flies in the face of the very principles this nation was founded on. Voting for a third party is not a “wasted vote.” It is a vote for another choice, something that is decidedly lacking in American politics.

I am not unrealistic. I realize that while Governor Johnson is not included in any scheduled debates, he would probably not win this year even if he were included. I understand that my vote for Gary Johnson will not sway my home state of Connecticut. I know that riddling Facebook with posts espousing Libertarian philosophies and Gary Johnson

Let us start voting with our consciences – and damn the consequences. links will probably not earn him any electoral votes. But I do it anyway, because I value my freedom of speech at a level that exceeds my pessimistic attitude towards my own political system. I am voting my conscience, and I sleep better at night for it.

Four years ago, I was swept up in ObamaMania. I looked for Hope and Change. I saw it, too, but not in the way I was looking for. I give much credit to the President for attempting to follow through on a staggering number of campaign promises, though he compromised little and pushed through several pieces of legislation prematurely. I do believe President Obama wants what is best for the nation. I believe the same of Mitt Romney.

But I cannot justify voting for any politician when there is another who better aligns with my views. I am a realist, and I recognize that in any first-past-the-post political system like ours, two parties tend to emerge.

Until the system itself changes, I will do the best I can. I will fight for what I believe, speak my mind, vote for principle over party, and work for the betterment of this country I love. I invite you to do the same.

No vote is a wasted vote. It is an affirmation of your beliefs, and it is a message to future candidates that, if they want to court your support, they share your viewpoints. Let us start voting with our consciences – and damn the consequences.

Marshall Mayer is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at mmayer@wustl.edu

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12

The American Voter

The American Voter

The Select Few Lisa Soumekh

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ver the years, presidential candidates have become more focused on securing any support that will make even the slightest difference to their total electoral votes. This notion has translated itself into a heavy emphasis on winning swing states. Many presidential elections have come down to a state or a few votes within that state. One doesn’t have to look far back to see how the presidential election of 2000 was implicitly decided by only one state, Florida.

With the presidential candidates this year running neck and neck, there is no doubt that it will come down to a select group. This year that privileged group includes Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. Many of these states have carried weight in past elections, but what makes this election so unusual is that just a few of their counties will make a difference.

When Americans become aware of this for the first time, their biggest concern is who the people making such a monumental decision really are. Overall, many of the select counties tend to either be predominately white or have burgeoning African American and Hispanic populations. They tend to be middle class and have economies that have been heavily affected by current economic troubles. For many of these counties, they have a large impact on the ultimate outcome of their states. In Nevada, Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, constitutes twothirds of the state vote. Currently, polls collected by the Huffington Post, show Obama with a slight lead of 49% compared to Romney’s 45%. Similar to most contested areas, these select counties are split along party lines. For example, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, which constitutes thirty percent of the state’s vote, is split among urban Democratic voters in Manchester and Nashua, and Republican voters in more rural towns. Likewise, Hillsborough County, Florida, is split along its urban and suburban areas.

With the election results riding on such a small fraction of the population, it is no surprise that the candidates have shaped their campaigns to target these exact areas.

The most prevalent strategy has become heavy advertisement. Ad spending in the tar-

For many Americans, nothing appears to be an attack on the democratic process more than the idea that their vote may not matter. geted counties has been exorbitant. A recent analysis by the Washington Post estimated that the total cost spent for campaign ads has accumulated to $473.4 million. Most of the advertisements are either negative or focus on unemployment. The biggest targets of the candidate’s advertisements are the exact counties that could decide the election. In the state of Ohio, the candidates have spent a combined total of $22 million in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, and Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati. The analysis has also shown Washington D.C. as one of the most heavily advertised areas in the country. This is because the D.C. media market overlaps with vital areas in northern Virginia. For example, Fairfax County, Virginia, which represents one in seven Virginians, drew a lot of support for Obama in 2008, but is much closer in 2012.

This targeted campaigning involves not just advertising, but also a style focused on building personal relationships. Obama has much to worry about. A president hasn’t won a reelection with an unemployment rate above eight percent since the Great Depression. As a result, he’s spent much of his energy personally campaigning in these crucial counties. Obama has visited local restaurants, high schools, and even church summer camps to portray himself as a man of the people. Meanwhile, he depicts Romney as a greedy corporate executive. Romney’s tactics are not much different. He’s been keeping

himself low-key by attending local fundraisers and events and using his “all-American” family to relate to the people. Like Obama, Romney attacks his opponent by portraying him as a man who is incapable of helping the people of America.

With all the intensive campaigning, it is fair to wonder whether either candidate is having any effect on the select voters. Recent polls by The New York Times show Obama slightly ahead in most swing areas and most Americans under the impression that Romney will only favor the rich. With the election riding on so few votes, every action taken by the candidates, no matter how small, will have an effect.

Ultimately, for many Americans, nothing appears to be an attack on the democratic process more than the idea that their vote may not matter. Unfortunately, with Election Day approaching quickly, Americans will have to sit at the sidelines and hope all works out well.

Lisa Soumekh is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.

She can be reached at lsoumekh@wustl.edu.

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Feeding Frenzy Andrew Luskin

As the election draws closer, this column becomes harder to write, since it’s hard to type and vomit at the same time. As we celebrate the climax of our democracy, which tears the country between left and right and those who don’t care, let’s remember that this bullshit will never end. Bill Clinton was recently asked if Hillary planned to run in 2016, and he responded that he had “no earthly idea.”

The next day, the headlines read: “Bill Clinton fuels speculation about his wife, 2016.” Still, worse than the Democrats and the Republicans, worse even than the apathetic, are those who claim that all politicians are the same and we’re screwed either way. It’s a way to sound informed while absolving yourself of the responsibility to care. Really, you’ve just adopted a political philosophy gleaned from Jay Leno monologues.

Bill Clinton is back on top, and the nation is loving it. With a 69% favorability rating and his recently discovered super-vegan powers, Clinton is barnstorming the country for the Obama campaign.

As soon as he agreed to speak at the Democratic National Convention, they gave him a primetime slot, bumping Joe Biden to the next evening. At the DNC, Clinton went off the teleprompter and made sweet rhetorical love for 49 minutes. When Clinton finished, the public called for four more years, though it was unclear whom they were calling for.

The world was shocked and enthralled by topless pictures of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

Somehow, topless pictures of Queen Elizabeth didn’t have the same appeal.

Apple released the iPhone 5, which has changed everything by making the screen slightly taller. If Apple claims to have started one more revolution, it’ll qualify as an African country.

Terrorists attacked the US consulate in Libya with RPGs, killing four diplomats. After a lengthy investigation, officials announced that the attack had been planned. Of course it was: people can’t just walk around carrying a bazooka—it’s not Florida.

Romney released his 2011 tax returns, which drew criticism from conservatives, who wanted him to keep fighting. Alex Castellanos, strategist for Romney’s 2008 campaign, put it this way: “you don’t serve a life sentence and then confess afterward.” Indeed, you don’t do much of anything after you serve a life sentence. Along with his returns, Romney released a letter from his personal physician, who wrote that Romney “is a vigorous man…[with] reserves of strength, energy, and stamina that provide him with the ability to meet unexpected demands. There are no physical impairments that should interfere with his rigorous and demanding political career as the next President of the United States.” Yes, for the past six years, Romney’s job has been “the next President of the United States.”

Life expectancy for white men without a high school diploma has dropped to 67.5 years. Experts advise all white men to rub themselves with diplomas twice a week.

With an 18-point deficit among women, the Romney campaign is desperate to make up the gender gap. Instead of refuting hardcore social conservatism, Team Romney said: “women—aren’t they those machines that pump out babies?”

Accordingly, they came up with a new series of ads showing babies crying as their mothers tell them about the debt under Obama. Alex Catellanos, challenging Thomas Friedman for the title of worst moustached metaphorist, was eager to explain the strategy. “People know they’re in a hole,” he told the New York Times. “What they want is to know

that there is light at the end of the tunnel. They don’t want you to throw the baby in the tunnel.”

For years, contraceptive IUDs were restricted to women in monogamous relationships who had already had children. In light of recent research demonstrating that IUDs are not powered by family values, but by hormones, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommended that teenage patients be offered IUDs as a firstline treatment. Social conservatives, demoralized and exhausted, lacked the strength to fight the recommendation, offering only a few half-hearted quips about the “Intrauterine Devil.” Soon, the Christian Right may have to give up its opposition to birth control; after all, if God can create the heavens and the earth, he can break a condom.

Meanwhile, pediatricians are continuing to campaign against trampolines, mostly because they hate fun, and also because trampolines cause 100,000 injuries a year. Many people scoffed at the recommendation, since “I turned out just fine”— after all, kids need to be exposed to danger, like bugs and dogs and vertebral artery dissection.

Despite their prissy-pants opposition to breakable plastic toys and eating only Oreos and Kool-Aid, the doctors say that trampolines are fine, so long as belts and harnesses are used. Warning: if you’re using belts and harnesses, gynecologists now recommend that you have an IUD. According to a Harvard researcher, a Coptic Church scroll suggests that Jesus had a wife. In response, Catholics attacked the Egyptian embassy and burned a Harvard sweatshirt in effigy.

Michelle Obama narrowly beat Ann Romney in a cookie bake-off held by Family Circle magazine.

Obama’s cookies, which bring together white and dark chocolate chips in harmony, beat Romney’s M&M cookies by only 234 votes. Romney gaffed by basing her cookies on oatmeal, proving that Republicans just don’t understand the concerns of average Americans.

Experts are divided over whether the presidential debates are critical or meaningless, depending on whether their side won or lost. The debates give the candidates their best chance to make a direct appeal to the nation, but more importantly, they give the candidates a chance to screw up. Mitt Romney has been drilling for weeks, hoping that programmed responses will help him overcome his robotic image. Meanwhile, Team Obama downplayed expectations, portraying Obama as a bumbling debater, sure to be used by Romney like a mop. It’s a smart strategy: when Sarah Palin was praised for making it ninety minutes without falling into a chasm of ignorance, it showed that it’s less important to win than to exceed expectations.

Andrew Luskin is a senior. If you can’t tell what’s real from what’s a joke, neither can he. His email is at.luskin@gmail.com

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The American Voter

The Return of Bubba: What Barack Can Learn from Bill’s Latest Comeback Ben Lash

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n the second night of the Democratic National Convention, former President Bill Clinton delivered a highly anticipated speech formally nominating Barack Obama as the party’s candidate for president. With his passionate defense of Obama, withering criticism of intransient Republicans, and folksy proclamations on complex policy issues, the former president thoroughly energized the thousands of attendees at the Time Warner Cable Arena and the millions of sympathizers watching at home. By the time he walked off the stage, President Clinton had become the single most revered figure of the 2012 election.

This represents an improbable turn of events. In a Pew Research Center poll released following the convention, a plurality of twentynine percent of respondents named Clinton’s speech, ahead of the President’s and First Lady’s, the highlight of the event. Nielsen ratings showed that the speech attracted more viewers than the opening game of the National Football League, which was being broadcast simultaneously. And in a New York Times/CBS survey released the following week, President Clinton saw his approval ratings climb to 66%, higher than at any point during his presidency. But the numbers themselves do not reveal just how stunning a phenomenon this was.

Most surprisingly, many Republicans, once bitter rivals of Clinton, heaped praise upon his performance to draw contrasts between the former and the current president. Mitt Romney stated that Clinton’s speech “elevated the convention”, while Newt Gingrich praised it as “eerily anti-Obama.” Rather than attack President Clinton, Republicans began playing up his popularity and trying to pin it against President Obama.

Thus, one of the most polarizing figures in recent American political history has become one of the country’s most universally admired leaders. And the reasons why are likely instructive to President Obama as he pursues a second term.

First, with unemployment still hovering around eight percent and mounting federal debt, the Clinton era of the 1990s has become

increasingly perceived as the halcyon days of the American economy.

Accordingly, Clinton is now prominently viewed as a fiscally responsible Democrat who was able to negotiate a series of balanced budgets with a hostile Republican Congress. For President Obama, who has been infamously unsuccessful in this regard, endorsing a serious plan to reduce the deficit could ameliorate his reputation on fiscal matters.

Second, Clinton expertly weaved together complicated policy with common sense politics. President Obama, who often ineffectively markets many of his policies, must find ways to better connect with the American public in order to win broad, bipartisan support for his agenda.

Apart from specific policy, there is the mere fact that Clinton is still this popular and relevant. Of course, President Clinton’s political career has been incredibly turbulent. He was strongly repudiated in the 1994 midterms, only to convincingly win re-election in 1996; he soiled his reputation during the Lewinsky scandal, only to successfully rebrand himself as a philanthropist and humanitarian; and he enraged multiple Democrats with inflammatory rhetoric during the 2008 primaries, only to emerge as the most effective campaign surrogate for Obama in 2012. Some of this can be chalked up to Clinton’s perseverance and unmatched political skill. But it is also a testament to an American electorate that is almost always willing to give second chances.

Obama’s first four years as President have not always been easy.

As he stands for re-election, it seems that his brightest days as a public figure came and went four Novembers ago. But if Clinton’s latest comeback can tell us anything, it is that legacies are not always written after one term, or even one presidency. For an incumbent president whose first term has been flagged by popular disappointment, this might be the most useful lesson of all.

Ben Lash is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.

He can be reached at blash@wustl.edu

The American Voter

Mitt Romney, Mary Sue Joshua Jacobs

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wilight. The Hunger Games. Fifty Shades of Grey. These three books have swept across the country over the last few years, creating legions of adoring fans, primarily among young to middleaged women. For literary critics, it is clear that their success is based neither on plot strength, nor on their poignancy, but rather on the lack of character dimension. All three novels rely on an overly-idealized, plain-yetbeautiful, flat protagonist, a character who the reader can easily pretend to be. These characters, known in the literary world as “Mary Sues,” are so underdeveloped and under-described that it is easy for the reader to feel connected with the protagonist and step into their shoes.

Mitt Romney does not make a good Mary Sue. He is too rich and too Mormon. He has constantly changing opinions about fundamental political positions. Yet, the political and business elites running Mitt Romney’s campaign continually attempt to make him appear, on a personal level, to be a common small business owner, the political neophyte, or just a “cool guy.” The Republican Party, for the first time in recent memory, has chosen to run away from their candidate’s personal history. They mention his “business success” without ever mentioning the high-powered work that he did at Bain Capital. They shy away from any mention of his time as governor of Massachusetts, except occasionally as evidence that he can act in a bipartisan manner. And nobody, of course, mentions that he has been effectively running for president for the last five years. Jon Huntsman, one of Romney’s opponents in the Republican primaries, noted that Mitt acted like a “perfectly lubricated weather vane,” referring to Romney’s well known tendency to hold nearly every possible position on the same issue.

In effect, the Romney strategy is to forget about all of the candidate’s greatest successes, in order to paint him as this year’s rendition of “Joe Sixpack.” It is easy to see why this is an attractive strategy. As Romney noted in his now infamous “47%” gaffe, many people vote based on whom they like better. The Romney campaign wants those votes. They want those votes so much, in fact, that they never mention a specific policy, never stray from a

message about the evils of the President, and try hard to make their candidate appear to be one of the small business owners he so often references. Mitt Romney is trying to be a Mary Sue. He is trying to be so uninteresting that he has to be liked. It is certainly an audacious strategy to have a candidate with so much experience hide so much of it.

He is trying to be so uninteresting that he has to be liked.

This attempt has not worked well for the Romney camp. It’s not easy for one of the 0.1% richest men in the country to pretend he’s a common guy. Instead of discussing how their candidate can make America better, the Romney campaign spends its time explaining away his record. What Romney’s advisers have yet to learn is that most people, on the left or right, would rather have a

president who can fix the economy, take a strong role in foreign policy, and control the government than a president they can have a beer with. This should be Romney’s strength.

Instead of pretending to be an Average Joe, Romney should develop some actual policies, stand by them, and explain their utility to the American people. It’s what they’ve been waiting for.

I don’t know what Romney actually believes, and I don’t know how he would actually govern. Still, I have a hard time believing the race would currently favor Obama, with a weak economy and a disliked President, if the Republican candidate chose a stronger literary role model than the one-dimensional

everyman. With a record of bipartisanship in a liberal state, major policy initiatives, business successes, and leadership experience, Mitt Romney should be an ideal candidate for the Republican Party; the fact that he is far behind in a bad economy shows that his campaign strategy has been failing. Never before in our political history have we seen a candidate do so little with so much opportunity.

Joshua Jacobs is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He can be reached at j.jacobs@wustl.edu

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18

The American Voter

The Meaningful Vote:

Why Being Informed on the Issues isn’t Enough Kaity Shea Cullen

Lip Service As the November elections quickly approach, the race for the White House is heating up. And so are late-night dorm debates. WashU’s student body is politically aware and engaged, but it has also shown itself to be committed to making educated and meaningful decisions in the ballot box. So here’s a bit of advice: Voters having difficulty deciding between Obama and Romney should follow their heads, not their hearts.

Social issues are often a key contributor in determining how an individual will vote. According to the Pew Research Center, 39% of voters say that abortion is “very important” to their vote, 34% say the same of birth control, 47% of gun control, and 28% of gay marriage. But once a president is elected, they rarely produce any sweeping changes to social policy.

First and foremost, social issues are assigned to the states. Don’t be fooled by the lip service both candidates are currently paying to issues like gay marriage and abortion— social issues always draw a lot of hype during election season, but rarely yield significant legislation down the road. In June, Hispanic Florida Senator Marco Rubio stated that immigration reform is “powerful politics” and that politicians on both sides of the aisle “want it to stay unresolved because it makes it easier to influence elections and easier to raise money.”

The same is true of social issues. Addressing them during a campaign is an effective way for candidates to secure support from their target bases and get out the vote, but actually addressing them in legislation is unusual because it is difficult to enact and politically risky.

Irrelevant Issues One of the beauties of federalism is that while social issues are rarely addressed at the federal level, they can be— and are— addressed at the state level. Gay marriage is a textbook example of this. A wide range of gay marriage-related policies exists across the 50 states, but a change in federal policy is doubtful. Traditionally, issues of marriage have been assigned to the states, and both candidates are unlikely to successfully bring about significant new legislation in these areas. Using one’s gay marriage stance to choose candidates at the state level would be far more rational than doing so at the federal level.

Abortion, another hot topic, should be held similarly irrelevant to the election. The 2012 GOP platform called for a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion. The likelihood of such an amendment coming to fruition is so small that even if Romney were elected, it would not be worth his time and energy to pursue it. A legislative ban on abortion would also fail, as it did in 2003 when it was struck down by the Supreme Court. The purpose of the plank is to fire up voters, secure the devout Christian base, and increase voter turnout

The presidential election is irrelevant to social issues, and social issues should be irrelevant to the presidential election. by making people believe the election is about something it is simply not about. The court system alone has determined the legality of abortions since 1970. The presidential election is irrelevant to this issue, and this issue should be irrelevant to the presidential election.

Politicians use social issues as a campaign tool. It allows them to secure a particular voter base and get out the vote. But to actually base a presidential vote on the candidates’ views on subjects like abortion and gay marriage is irrational. A wise voter will choose his or her candidate on issues like job creation, international affairs, and energy, three areas that a president will actually influence. Social issues are relevant to state and local elections, but are only a distraction and a campaign tool on the national stage. Basing a vote on issues that will bring about real and significant policy makes it relevant, impactful, and meaningful.

Kaity Shea Cullen is a freshman in the college of Arts and Sciences.

She can be reached at kaitysheac@yahoo.com.

The American Voter

The Catholic Vote Molly McGregor | Illustration by Jackie Reich

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ne in every four American voters identifies as Catholic. Not only one of the largest voting groups in America, Catholics also constitute one the most fickle and politically salient. In every presidential election since 1972, the winner of the popular vote has also won the Catholic vote. Catholics also happen to be heavily concentrated in battleground states. Adding an interesting dynamic to the upcoming election is the fact that both Representative Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden are Catholic, drawing attention to the importance of this voting bloc. With the race as close as it is, this election could very well be decided by the Catholic vote.

Historically, Catholics have long been a significant voting bloc in the United States. In the 2008 presidential election, Catholics’ narrow support for Obama over McCain was nearly identical to the national vote. For decades, they have constituted a fourth of the total population (and would be a third if not for those raised as Catholics but who no longer identify as such). Currently, 77 million Americans identify as Catholic, making it the single largest religious denomination in the country. Despite their demographic size, however, Catholics do not constitute a politically unified voice. More than any other religious group, Catholics remain politically split—a

Until recently, Catholic voters in the US remained evenly split in their support of Romney and Obama. Both presidential candidates were tied with 46% of the Catholic vote and 8% were undecided, according to a Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year. In an effort to court Catholic voters, the Obama campaign revealed in August their “Catholics for Obama” team, a 21-person group of well-known Catholic public officials, academics, and theologians. The Demo-

One in every four American voters identifies as catholic. Not just one of the largest voting groups in America, Catholics also constitute one of the most fickle and politically salient. reality that is clearly demonstrated by the presence of the two vicepresidential candidates. There is no such thing as a “typical” Catholic voter. Rather, there are two types, or two “Catholicisms,“ readily characterized by the each of the Vice Presidential candidates.

In the past, Catholics have tended to lean slightly Democratic.

To many Catholics, the Democratic Party appeals to the longstanding tradition of charity and attention to the poor and vulnerable groups of society, as well as the view of the government as obliged to help care for such groups. However, Democratic stances on social issues including abortion and same-sex marriage have also alienated Catholic voters for whom these are hot button issues.

Joe Biden is representative of what you could call the liberal Catholic contingent. These Catholics tend to deemphasize strict doctrine and evangelization in favor of social justice and charity. On the other hand, Paul Ryan represents the more conservative strains within the American Catholic bloc. These Catholics take traditionally conservative positions on social issues including abortion, samesex marriage, and more recently on the Health and Human Services mandate that employers provide free contraception to employees as part of Obamacare. However, many Catholics, while supportive of Republican stances on social issues, are simultaneously critical of Ryan’s budget cutting proposals.

cratic National Committee also invited Sister Simone Campbell, a prominent nun, to be a part of the national bus tour protesting Ryan’s proposed budget cuts and to speak at the National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. This month, both Obama and Romney are scheduled to attend a charity event hosted by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.

Efforts by Democrats seem to be paying off: a new Pew Poll now indicates Catholics now favor Obama over Romney 54% to 39%, coinciding with overall national trend showing a slight increase in support for Obama. Ethnic divisions within block, however, are interesting to note. Support for Obama and Romney continues to be split among white Catholic voters, but Hispanics (30% of all Catholics) support Obama by a significant margin. With a historically lower Hispanic voter turnout and a full 7% of all Catholics still undecided, neither party should let up on the Catholic vote that may once again end up mirroring (or deciding) the national result.

Molly McGregor is a senior in the College ofArts in Sciences.

She can be reached at mgmcgreg@wustl.edu

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The American Voter

Energetic about Energy?

Far From It Nick Siow | Illustration by Dara Katzenstein

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et’s say a large national poll was taken at this moment, and participants were asked to list the five most pressing concerns of the nation. The two biggest national issues would probably be who is on the next season of Dancing with the Stars or the screen size of the new iPhone. But right behind those should be the imminent danger of non-sustainable energy. In past elections, the debate over energy policy has been a highly contentious issue. So what are this year’s nominees saying about it? Unfortunately, not much. Rather than waiting with bated breath for Obama’s birth certificate or Romney’s tax return, voters should look at the candidates’ energy policies to learn what the country will be like in four years.

Energy policy was a central issue in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election, with two drastically different directives proposed for reducing American oil dependency. The two parties held somewhat similar beliefs in the Bush v. Kerry election before diverging sharply again with Obama v. McCain. In 2008, the environmental effects of offshore oil drilling and America’s reliance on foreign oil were hotly debated topics. Fast-forward to this November’s election and little more than a peep has been heard from either candidate about their plans for America’s energy future.

Despite the silence of our candidates, there is plenty of juicy, debate-worthy material in this year’s election. In fact, the degree of difference between the two candidates and their perspectives on America’s energy situation is startling.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney believes strongly in reducing dependency on foreign oil and in tapping American oil reserves. According to Romney’s official campaign releases, individual states should have control over drilling sanctions, tax credits for wind energy should be eliminated, and the ability of organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency to file lawsuits against oil and coal companies should be diminished. His plan approaches the energy problem almost solely from the side of production rather than consumption. Brad Plumer from the Washington Post writes that the United States needs three major changes in order to facilitate this plan; more federal

lands and waters would open for drilling, the federal government would cede approval and regulation power to the states, and additional oil infrastructure would be instituted across the country. Under his plan, Romney says that North America can “achieve energy independence by 2020.”

President Obama’s energy policy, on the other hand, sits in almost direct contrast to Romney’s. Selection and regulation of drilling sites would remain in federal hands.

Incentives for renewable energy would remain while tax breaks for oil and gas would be eliminated. In a second term, President Obama wishes to continue federal mandates regarding fuel consumption, such as the fuel efficiency mandate slated to take effect in 2025. Obama’s plan appears to fall on the complete other side of the spectrum;

The type of car you drive, the numbers on your energy bills, the energy that heats your home and turns on your lights — that will all be determined during this election. forecasting a reduction in drilling, increased federal regulation, and the promotion of infrastructure for alternative energies.

This time, energy policy on the political battleground is divided into clear black

and white. While tax policy and healthcare reform dominate the conversation, it would be a mistake to discount energy completely.

Over the next few years, the United States’ stance on energy and resources will affect our nation in multiple arenas. Energy policy will dip into the sphere of technology and innovation as new forms of green energy are investigated. Energy policy will have an economic impact, determining the quantity, price and source of our oil, as well as determining the nation’s position in specialized markets like solar technology. And it will continue to affect policymaking as we work to become a more sustainable nation.

Although the candidates’ energy plans alone may not be enough to sway most voters, it is an important consideration to weigh.

The type of car you drive, the numbers on your energy bills, the energy that heats your home and turns on your lights — that will all be determined during this election. If you wanted something to reignite your interest in the election, let it be this. Get energized for energy.

Nicholas Siow is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He can be reached at n.siow@wustl.edu.

The American Voter

Who are the 6 Percent?

the President promised four years ago. And they are the people whom Obama tries to chip away from the Republican Party by touting his foreign policy edge over Mitt “the CEO” Romney.

Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, these people might in fact be highly partisan voters. They defected because the party or nominee was not in line with their own ideology. They might be more deliberative than floating voters, but not necessarily more neutral.

Fanghui Zhao

A

merican politics is full of curious phenomena. Here is my election time favorite: the swing voter.

They are the golden snitch of elections, hard to catch, but always the most valuable part of the game. They could win the election for candidates, score a few ratings points for cable news, and generate some papers for academics.

And adding on to this year’s recurring theme of “magic percentage numbers,” following the 1%, 99% and 47%, swing voters are the 6%.

A YouGov poll conducted in December 2011 showed that 94% of the voters had already made up their minds before the Republican Party even had a nominee.

The New York Times re-polled 1000 of the 44,000 questioned, and as of the end of September, the number of undecided voters still stood at 6%.

These 6%, however, are not the same individuals. Some shifted toward one of the candidates, while others became uncertain with their initial choices.

Just who are these elusive swing voters?

Let’s take a closer look at them and how they might affect this election.

Independents It turns out that not all independents are equally independent.

Most polling agencies put the percentage of independents at over a third of the likely or registered voters. But when pressed further with questions on whether they are “leaning” or “feel closer” to either of the parties, most independents drift one way or another. And they often ended up voting according their preferred party, just like their openly partisan counter parts.

They are the “closet partisans,” a term coined by Bruce Keith in the book The Myth of Independent Voters.

This usually leaves us with about 10% of voters as “pure independents.” They tend to swing between candidate choices as the campaign progresses, during the election cycle.

They were first given the name “floating voters” by H. Daudt in 1961, and these floating

Soccer Moms, NASCAR Moms, NASCARDay Dads…

Anxiety Moms?

Moms?

1%, 99%, 47%... Adding on to this year’s recurring theme of ‘magic percentage numbers’ - swing voters are the 6%. voters might swing till the moment they step into the voting booth.

Far from being the deliberative, sane middle that the media often praises when lamenting a polarized America, these late deciders are more accurately described as “low information voters.” Studies have found that these voters are more likely to over-credit the incumbent president for foreign policy success, and over-criticize the incumbent for economic underperformance. They are less politically engaged and less informed, at least according to numerous research papers on the topic. As such, they are influenced by cues from the news media short-term shifts in momentum.

In short, they do not exist. These people do exist of course, but the idea that certain unique demographic groups exist as swing voter blocks is as true as the existence of unicorns.

The book Unconventional Wisdom summarized research that showed swing voters are neither demographically distinct, nor geographically concentrated. The only meaningful way to define swing voters is based on their actual voting behaviors – something we can only find out after the election.

Although political scientists dismiss these pigeonholed groups, campaign strategists and the news media never fail to prop up new innovative categories of swing voters – Reagan Democrats, Clinton Republicans, soccer moms, NASCAR dads. A recent New York Times article observed that more GOP ads are featuring babies, supposedly targeting so-called “anxiety moms,” who are anxious about the future of their children. And Fox News was allegedly looking for unemployed college graduates – a.k.a disenchanted Obama supporters –living with their parents to do interviews.

It is understandable, though. Each election cycle has its own dynamics. All campaigns hope they can buck the odds and be the outlier point on a researcher’s graph of the best-fit line. And how much the media would love such an against-the-odds story.

Welcome to the age of “I am a swing voter and you can be, too!”

Party Switchers These are the swing voters who swing across different election cycles.

They are the people whom Romney clumsily expressed his desire to appeal to; the people who can be reminded of the sluggish economy and the lack of hope and change

Fanghui Zhao is an exchange student from Waseda University, Japan, currently in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at fanghui.zhao@wustl.edu.

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International The Germany Problem Bart Kudrzycki

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fter three years and 17 summits, the Eurozone is still searching for an effective solution to the economic crisis that has been wracking the continent since late 2009. As investors continue to shy away from struggling economies, countries like Spain, Italy, and Greece are experiencing greater difficulty repaying their loans. Last month, the Eurozone introduced the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a significant bond purchase program that will provide up to an additional 500 billion Euros of emergency funds to troubled nations, after a three-month-long legal wrangle. It is designed to alleviate lack of investment, but optimism among investors has been tempered by civil unrest in Spain and continued cries of dissent coming from Germany, the Eurozone’s largest economy.

The ESM is to be funded by all 17 Eurozone countries, with each country’s contribution proportional to the size of its economy. Funds will be unlimited, with the condition that the governments receiving aid will undergo necessary budgetary reforms. Buying bonds from struggling nations lowers their interest rates, allowing them to service their debt in the short run and institute reforms in the long run if needed. The growing concern for Germany and other northern European nations, however, is that the ESM will transfer much of the default risk from the distressed sovereigns to the other Eurozone members. Pressures from concerned German politicians across

The growing concern for Germany and other northern European nations is that the ESM will transfer much of the default risk from the distressed sovereigns to all Eurozone members. the country’s political spectrum even led to a lawsuit at Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court, where the ESM was finally upheld on September 11th. The fund is seen by many as crucial to the survival of the monetary union, yet just hours after the announcement Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, called unlimited bond purchases “tantamount to financing governments by printing bank notes.”

Indeed, domestic discord has proved a thorny issue for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has long championed the survival of the Euro as her utmost priority, and who called the constitutional

upholding of the ESM, “a good day for Germany and…for Europe”.

In July, an open letter criticizing her approach to the crisis was signed by 172 German-speaking economists and published in the national daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, setting off a widely publicized firestorm of debate among academics. Mr. Weidmann has been particularly outspoken against further German participation in what he calls “central bank financing”: the European Central Bank (ECB) purchase of billions of Euros worth of debt from Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He believes that a careful and rigorous economic restructuring of floundering nations is the key to recovery, not debt transfer. Promising to buy unlimited amounts will reduce the incentive to undergo painful reform, he claims, even telling the German magazine Der Spiegel that financing states through the money presses can prove to be “addictive, like a drug.” He is the third Bundesbank president to set himself stoutly against ECB bond buying – his two predecessors resigned in protest, in quick succession.

Whether the permanent European Stability Mechanism will be a more successful tool to counteract the crisis than its temporary predecessors, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM), remains to be seen. Stock markets positively reacted immediately following the ruling in the German court, but have since declined amidst continued instability and rioting in Greece and Spain. Even more worryingly, a recent joint statement by the German, Dutch, and Finnish finance ministries declared that teetering banks can only be recapitalized by the ESM “once the single [bank] supervisory mechanism is established and its effectiveness has been determined.” Establishing the ESM’s “effectiveness” could take years, and if ECB President Mario Draghi is correct in saying that “the greatest risk to stability is not action, but inaction,” European leaders have no time to move so cautiously. As the high drama in Europe continues, one thing is certain: Germany will continue to play a leading role in the proceedings.

Whether that role turns out to be prudent protagonist or obstructive antagonist may decide the fate of Europe’s single currency.

Bart Kudrzycki is a senior in the College of Arts nd Sciences.

He can be reached at bpkudrzy@wustl.edu.

International

David Cameron’s Future Hangs in the Balance Rory Scothorne

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or a Prime Minister who just presided over a riotously popular Olympic games, David Cameron’s job isn’t as secure as it should be. His Conservative Party is sinking in the polls, and his position is becoming increasingly dependent on his own personal popularity and an extremely fragile balance between his own party and their coalition partners in the centrist Liberal Democrats. Where did it all go wrong?

Cameron’s troubles have their roots in 2011, when he was forced to face down public anger over Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s chaotic reforms to the National Health Service. They intensified in March of this year, with Chancellor George Osborne’s deeply unpopular budget. A modest tax cut for the wealthy was compounded by spending cuts and tax increases that hit the working and middle classes hardest, and the ‘Tories” were restored to their traditional place in the public mind as a party of the rich, for the rich.

Next, at the height of the scandal over the illegal hacking of voicemail messages by journalists working for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, both Cameron and Culture and Media Secretary Jeremy Hunt were accused of high-level corruption and cronyism regarding Murdoch’s bid for television

ing, the national debt is skyrocketing and the deficit sits at £14billion and rising.

It’s an established fact of British politics that when the going gets tough, the Tories get mean. With just a third of the population planning to vote Conservative at the next election, many Conservative members and backbenchers are demanding a shift to the right. 14 Conservative Members of Parliament demanded a leadership contest, while media speculation intensified over the leadership hopes of London Mayor Boris Johnson. Johnson’s popularity, buoyed by his visibility during the Olympic games, is increasingly a cause for concern among the Prime Minister’s loyal circle of ‘Cameroons’.

Cameron responded with a cabinet reshuffle that installed a number of leading rightwingers in senior positions.

Cameron is also facing growing discontent among the Liberal Democrats, his coalition partners, who have been brutally punished for a string of broken promises. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s perceived failures to stop a rise in university tuition fees and healthcare reforms have caused students and the party’s left wing to desert them en masse, followed by catastrophes in elections to local councils and the Scottish parliament.

To try and shore up some support, the party

come early wobbles with a number of smart tactical calls. He outflanked and damaged the Tories with quick and brave action on healthcare, taxes and phone-hacking, while his comprehensive policy review is beginning to formulate an attractive vision of ‘responsible capitalism’ that displays an impressive grasp of the new political center.

Miliband is also beginning to make very public overtures to disenchanted Liberal Democrats in an attempt to split the coalition – particularly the left-leaning Business Secretary Vince Cable. Cable remains popular among the British public, with a recent poll suggesting his leadership would win 50 seats for his party at the next election – 18 more than under Clegg. He harbours a fierce dislike of the Conservatives, and is able to attack them from the safety of his cabinet post thanks to his prominence in his own party.

His apparent loyalty to Clegg should rule out any imminent leadership challenge, but he could become a significant rallying point for discontented Liberal Democrats if the Tories don’t moderate their rightwards drift.

David Cameron is worried. As his party drags him to the right and his coalition partners grumble, he’s losing his footing on the center ground and facing questions over his leadership. His government is unpopular and divided, while the Labour Party is growing in confidence and regaining public support. Despite all this, he is far from doomed.

Most importantly, his personal favourability ratings remain far ahead of Miliband’s, who has yet to convince the public of his Prime Ministerial qualities. The Liberal Democrats are unlikely to force an election before 2015

As his party drags him to the right and his coalition partners grumble, he is losing his footing on the center ground and facing questions over his leadership. company BSkyB. Miraculously, Hunt kept his job, but the controversy cemented the public perception of a government in the pocket of wealthy interests.

Meanwhile, the government’s central, defining policy has failed. The coalition was elected in 2010 on a mandate to mend Britain’s economy, reduce the national debt and balance the budget. Chancellor Osborne embarked on an ambitious programme of deep spending cuts. Now the economy is flatlin-

are pursuing an agenda of ‘differentiation’ with the Tories, blocking right-wing policies and taking credit for more ‘progressive’ ones.

Cameron’s problem here is twofold: his backbenchers are outraged at what they perceive as excessive restraint to appease their coalition partners, while the Liberal Democrats are hijacking his most popular initiatives.

The Labour Party now poses a clear threat. It is ten points ahead in the polls, and leader Ed Miliband appears to have over-

as long as Clegg remains leader and the party remains unpopular. A lot can happen in three years, but Cameron’s best bet now is to just sit tight and hope that things improve.

Rory Scothorne is an exchange student from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, currently in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at roryscothorne@gmail.com.

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International

Desperation, Exploitation, and the Global Organ Trade Sonya Schoenberger

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hat is your spare kidney worth to you? Would you give it up for $10,000? Or would $100,000 do the trick?

17-year-old Wang Shangkun’s price was an iPad and iPhone. According to The Huffington Post, the Chinese teenager, who was recruited by an organ broker in an online chat room, was one of over one hundred Chinese nationals involved in an extensive organ trafficking ring exposed this August. Shangkun, who was initially excited to receive $3,500 for his kidney—more than enough to buy his desired gadgets—is now suffering from renal failure and is too weak to face his harvesters in court.

Shangkun is just one of tens of thousands of individuals exploited in recent years to support the burgeoning black market organ trade. Many of these victims, like Shangkun, donated their organs consensually in the hopes of monetary gain. Others were misled or coerced. Some were even forced to go under the knife at gunpoint.

The demand for kidney transplants has skyrocketed in the last decade. Fueled by the combination of rising affluence in the developing world and increased rates of obesity and diabetes in wealthier nations, mounting demand for organs has given rise to a lucrative and illegal international business.

There are currently 94,000 Americans waiting to be matched with potential kidney donors. Worldwide, the number of hopeful recipients is in the millions. The vast majority of those waiting patiently and legally on transplant lists will be disappointed this year; most will languish on dialysis for a decade or more at great personal and societal cost. Each year in the United States alone, several thousand people die while waiting for an organ match.

In the midst of the grim realities of the modern transplant system, some of the more affluent, resourceful, and perhaps unscrupulous patients have abandoned such lists in favor of “transplant tourism” in the developing world. Coughing up between $100,000 and $200,000 apiece, these individuals, who hail primarily from North America, Western Europe, and the upper classes of some Asian nations, flock to hospitals overseas or fly their donors to the United States for their procedures. In the wake of the 2008 economic downturn, there has been no shortage of desperate people willing to do just about anything for a few thousand dollars. And organ brokers, the middlemen who often turn profits of tens of thousands of dollars per transaction, have few reservations about using manipulation and force to increase donor yields. Each year, an estimated 10,000 or

more illegal organ transactions take place around the world.

In theory, there is nothing morally repugnant about ascribing monetary value to body parts. Whether we like it or not, we operate in a world where nothing is “priceless”; while economists and ethicists may argue about the exact quantitative value of human life, many aspects of our modern society, from medical care to military expenditures, are premised upon a certain maximum value of human life. The tragedy of modern organ trafficking is not that it demeans the integrity of the human body but that a trade that could potentially benefit all those involved has become an unregulated mechanism for exploitation of the most desperate and marginalized members of global society.

The illegal organ trade is the product not of an absolute shortage of kidneys— there are at present about seven billion spares—but inefficient allocation of organs through a system hampered by red tape and entrenched social mores. To donate one’s kidney altruistically is considered a most laudable sacrifice, and the complex motives driving such acts of “altruism” are considered appropriate and virtuous so long as they cannot be traced to obvious economic incentives. As soon as money becomes involved, the donation is rendered illicit.

For some, the flourishing black market for organs has meant a second lease on life; for others it has led to regret, health problems, and stigmatization. And while regulation and oversight of the organ trade could be tremendously beneficial to organ donors and recipients alike, any system that reinforces the role of the impoverished masses of the developing world as an organ bank for more affluent societies would constitute a gruesome modern parallel to the colonial institutions of the past. An ideal solution would be for countries to embrace a heavily regulated organ trade network on a national scale, a model already adopted with success in Iran, with incentives closely calibrated to balance the sacrifices involved in undergoing a major but virtually innocuous operation.

Until the inefficiencies of organ allocation are addressed on a national level, the world’s most vulnerable citizens will continue to be exploited and eviscerated by greedy middlemen on the behalf of affluent foreigners whose crime is simply a will to survive at any cost.

Each year an estimated 10,000 or more illegal organ organ transactions take place around the world.

Sonya Schoenberger is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences.

She can be reached at sonyaschoenberger@wustl.edu.

International

South America’s Destructive Gold Rush Noah Eby

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he doubling of gold prices since the 2008 financial crisis has fueled a surge of illegal gold mining across several Amazonian countries in South America.

Tens of thousands have migrated to mining areas in the rainforest in search of economic salvation, and the consequences of this unregulated gold rush range from environmental degradation to criminality.

In Peru, the world’s sixth-largest producer of gold, illegal gold mining has reached particularly large proportions. The industry brings in $1.8 billion per year, which, according to a Peruvian consultancy, is more than the cocaine trade. Over a fifth of Peru’s gold exports come from illicit mining operations, and as many as 400,000 people are directly

two to three times greater. Furthermore, the use of mercury to process the silt has led to contamination of the ecosystem and health risks for the miners.

Within the mining camps, lawlessness reigns. The governor of Madre de Dios, Jose Luis Aguirre, said in a PBS NewsHour report that the illegal mining “brings human trafficking, child exploitation. It also brings many cases of sexually transmitted diseases.

It brings criminality. These problems exist because these areas are no-man’s-land.”

Smithsonian Magazine describes the case of a 10-year-old girl who was tricked into coming to the mining camps. Her family was told that she would be a babysitter for a wealthy family, but she ended up “in

ing an estimated $305 million in potential tax revenue from the unregistered mining, according to Nature.

While the South American illegal gold rush has been remarkably absent from the headlines in the United States, it is a prominent issue in the most affected countries.

Military and police have repeatedly been sent in to destroy mining equipment and evict miners from the camps, but the equipment is promptly replaced, and the miners inevitably return. Recently, the government in Peru put forth a plan to gradually formalize the miners’ activities and encourage environmental and safety standards. Yet it seems unlikely that the miners will willingly subscribe to reforms that decrease the efficiency of their

The government is treating the symptoms but not the disease.

Chronic poverty and inequality will continue to plague South America, and leaders should view problems such as illegal mining as a manifestation of these deeply rooted issues. or indirectly involved in illegal gold mining across the country, Energy and Mines Minister Jorge Merino Tafur said in May. Much of the activity is concentrated in the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, where the newly completed Interoceanic Highway, which penetrates the Amazon to connect Peru’s Pacific coast to Brazil, has provided miners with easy access to the rainforest. There, in one of the most biologically diverse areas of the world, sprawling camps and mining towns house the 30,000 miners who have flocked to the region.

First-hand reports from the BBC and Smithsonian Magazine describe the grim scene. In the rainforest, miners strip the land of trees, siphon water from rivers, and use pressurized hoses to create massive pits in the earth while sifting through the silt for flecks of gold. The deforestation left in their wake – vast, barren wastelands interrupting pristine wilderness – shows no signs of slowing.

The government estimates that 2,000 square miles of forest have been destroyed, while environmental groups claim that number is

the process of becoming a slave.” Although she was rescued by a shelter organization, many others are not so fortunate and are forced into prostitution.

Stanford graduate student Katy Ashe has authored a report documenting the health effects of using mercury in the mines, but she also witnessed the exploitation of women and girls in the camps. “Once in the camps it is extremely difficult to escape,” Ashe writes.

“Miners let pimps know if prostitutes try to escape and gun-slinging guards protect the only paths leaving the camps through the dense rain forest. Even when pimps aren’t holding the women against their will, many women don’t have the resources to escape.”

The miners’ work is brutal but often financially worthwhile. Although they are not becoming fantastically wealthy, miners typically make much more than they would have at home. Disconcertingly, the money from the mines has become a source of income for guerilla groups across the Amazon, such as the FARC in Colombia. On the other side, the Peruvian government is los-

operations with regulations and taxation.

Ultimately, the government is treating the symptom rather than the disease.

Chronic poverty and inequality will continue to plague South America, and governments should view problems such as illegal mining as a temporary manifestation of these deeply rooted issues. With that in mind, the environmental ramifications of informal mining deserve immediate attention and action. But governments must realize that reducing illegal mining is not a socioeconomic solution – it is merely the postponement of yet another problem.

Noah Eby is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at neby555@gmail.com.

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International

A New Great Game in Central Asia?

Fahim Masoud | Illustration by Chris Hohl

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s there a new “Great Game” springing into existence in Central Asia? Many pundits and journalists who write on the region and its global importance argue that there is. In fact, after the Cold War and the birth of the five republics of Central Asia, this debate has dominated much of the analysis of the region.

Captain Arthur Conolly, a British officer of the Sixth Bengal Native Light Cavalry, coined the concept of the ‘Great Game’ in the 1830’s. Later, the English writer Rudyard Kipling immortalized the concept in his 1901 novel Kim. In basic terms, the Great Game was simply a struggle for power, territorial control, and political dominance between the Russian and British Empires in Central Asia in the nineteenth century. This competition of maneuvering and intrigue between the two empires came to an end in 1907, when both nations were forced to focus their resources on more serious threats. The British had to gear up and contain the rise of an assertive Germany in Europe, and the Russians were locked in a fierce struggle with the Japanese in Manchuria.

Today, the US invasion of Afghanistan and opening of military bases in Central Asia and the economic expansion of China into the region have convinced experts that a

new Great Game is afoot. German journalist Lutz Kleveman writes that a new Great Game “rages in the region.” Quoting Bill Richardson, former Secretary of Energy and US ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton years, Kleveman writes that the US is involved in Central Asia not only to defeat al Qaeda but also to “diversify [its] sources of oil and gas [and to] prevent strategic inroads by those who don’t share [its] values.”

Niklas Swanstrom, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, reaches the same conclusion, and in China and Central Asia: a new Great Game or traditional vassal relations? , he argues that the U.S. and China are enmeshed in a geo-economic competition over Central Asia’s natural resources. He says, “[t]he situation in Central Asia seems to be developing into a new version of the Great Game.”

Contrary to conventional wisdom, China’s objective in Central Asia is not to engage in a game with other regional powers but to secure “regional states’ support in suppressing anti-Beijing Uighur nationalists,” and to pave the way for Chinese firms to invest in Central Asian energy resources. Central Asian states are endowed with oil and natural gas supplies, and China, as a rising economic power and the second largest consumer of energy, has a clear interest in increasing its

presence in the region. China’s efforts to build roads and improve infrastructure and railways indicate the country’s growing involvement in Central Asia. As China’s relationship with Central Asian republics grow, “its relationship with major powers, namely the US and Russia, might suffer,” argues Kevin Sheives, a scholar on the region.

It is premature for China to go about implementing such a strategy. At present, China is faced with many domestic challenges. For example, it has to deal with Tibet, Xinjiang, and other semi-autonomous regions, all with separatist inclinations and ambitions for independence. China’s top priorities in Central Asia should be establishing security, maintaining regional stability, suppressing Uighur separatists in Xinjiang, and strengthening economic ties in region.

In order to satisfy the needs of its 1.4 billion people, China must search continuously for resources throughout the world. Chinese corporations and government-owned companies are involved in the economic affairs of the five republics of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which possess abundant supplies of natural gas and oil. Given China’s security concerns and energy needs, its engagement with Central Asian states will dramatically expand over the long term. Central Asian states are also welcoming China’s increasing expansion as they try to break Russia’s monopoly over transport routes. Ever since the foundation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001, China has been working to construct a new Silk Road to integrate Central Asia and the rest of the world with Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China. The Middle Kingdom’s return to Central Asia is likely to reconfigure the geopolitics of the region—hopefully for the better.

Fahim Masoud is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at fmasoud2007@gmail.com.

International

Right of Return: Facts vs. Feelings Gideon Palte | Illustration by Michelle Nahmad

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aka Yamaguchi’s article “The Palestinian Right of Return: What Once Was” in issue 17.1 of The Washington University Political Review purports to provide a solid foundation for Palestinians’ claim to a right of return to their former homes in present-day Israel. It provides firsthand accounts and interviews of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Jordan, and even features photographs of posters and artwork expressing the desire of many Palestinians to one day go back. The only thing the article lacks is the basis for any strong argument—cold, hard facts.

In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of the British colony of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. This partition was immediately and overwhelmingly rejected by the Arab world. Despite being given less land, the Jews accepted the plan and declared the independence of the State of Israel on May 18, 1948.

Arab political leaders declared war on Israel almost as soon as it had declared its independence. The resulting conflict displaced many Palestinians. Before they left, Israeli Prime Minister David ben Gurion welcomed all Palestinians to become citizens, in his “Declaration of the Independence of the State of Israel.” He called for the preservation of peace “on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation.” Yet many Palestinians still left.

Some people compare the Palestinians who left with the roughly equal number of Jews expelled from Arab nations by anti-Semitic riots when Israel declared its independence. Yet in this latter case, the oppressed were physically expelled due to the intolerance and hatred of those around them. The Palestinians who left did so for a number of reasons, some of which were related the pressure of Arab leaders that obligated them to leave. This perceived obligation superseded the pleas of the Israeli government for coexistence and collaboration.

Those who left refused their place as members of the State of Israel – they instead wished for a world in which that state would not exist. The idea that these same people have a right to return to live in a Jewish state along with their descendants is highly debatable. The fact that the number now claiming this right is four million – all bent on inhabiting a country with a current population of almost eight million – is preposterous.

Nevertheless, Mr. Yamaguchi claims that the Palestinians who left have an unquestionable right to return to Israel when he asserts, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that civilians maintain the right to return to the homes from which they fled in wartime…” Yet the UDHR, as represented on the website of the United Nations contains no such provision. The article of the declaration most resembling the author’s intention, Article 13, states: “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

Prior to 1948, the land that now comprises the State of Israel was not its own country but a British colony. The Palestinians who left their homes in 1948 clearly did not see Israel as their country. In light of this, the article’s application of the UDHR to this situation is perplexing. If the Palestinians do consider Israel their country, why did they leave in 1948? Why did they not stay and help shape the

future identity of the state? Can they legitimately claim membership to a political entity they formerly disdained only because they have no other way to achieve their goals?

The UDHR is actually most applicable to the expulsion of Jews from other Middle Eastern countries. They were members of established political states when they left, which means that according to the provisions of Article 13, they have an undeniable right to return to their former homes. Despite this entitlement, these individuals and their families claim no such right. They and their descendants have settled in other nations and moved on. Billions of dollars in international aid over the last 64 years have not helped Palestinians do the same.

Palestinians’ anger towards Israel will do nothing to change the ambivalence of Arab leaders towards their plight. Mr. Yamaguchi points the finger at “fear-mongering” Israeli politicians rather than target the exclusive policies of Arab countries. If Mr. Yamaguchi paid closer attention to the history of the region, he would know that Israel’s history is full of political leaders who have dared to facilitate a sustainable and peaceful future for their citizens. He would know that Israel’s neighbors have declared war multiple times, and that it is surrounded by terrorist groups committed to its destruction. He would know that Israel has made extreme territorial sacrifices totaling four times its current land mass in order to negotiate two peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. He would know that Israel has time and again entered into negotiations with Palestinian political leaders in order to reach a resolution; that twice in the last fifteen years, Israel met over 95% of Palestinian demands to work out a peaceful, two-state solution. And, most importantly, he would know that both times Israel was rejected outright without even a counter-offer.

Of course, Mr. Yamaguchi only knows what he learned in his three month “hands-on crash course on the Palestinian condition.”

He knows that Palestinians like Nabil feel that in a future Palestinian state, “There will be problems, but between Palestinian and Palestinian—between brothers.” He does not realize that the exclusion of Jews in this vision contradicts Article 1 of the UDHR, which states: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Mr. Yamaguchi cannot be blamed for caring about the Palestinians he saw and met during his summer experience. Indeed, compassion is the fundamental principle that stands behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But feelings expressed without reference to historical context or external factors create a much-distorted picture. More often than not, this distortion can only be corrected by consulting the facts.

To view the extended version of this article visit www.wupr.org.

Gideon Palte is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences.

He can be reached at gideonpalte@wustl.edu

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LOCAL Greening Baseball

Cancer Concerns

Alex Bluestone

Molly Prothero

If you have attended a Cards home game in the last few years, you may have noticed the somewhat awkward, somewhat out-of-place group of volunteers known as the Green Team. The Team is comprised of volunteers who walk down the aisles of the seating bowl in between innings to collect recyclables from fans and to promote the use of the recycling receptacles that are pervasive at Busch. This is just one of the ways in which the Cardinals exemplify a new goal for many leading sports organizations: the idea of “greening the game.”

What does corn in Russia say about Washington University?

It might sound like an odd question, but recent studies show that it is strangely applicable. Monsanto, the controversial agricultural science company based in St. Louis, has had a close relationship with our university for decades. Monsanto Hall houses the Biology Department on campus and was the first building at Wash U to be named after a corporation.

Many faculty members in the Biology Department also work with Monsanto and often apply to the corporation for grants for research. This fruitful relationship aside, Monsanto is criticized for aggressive business practices, flimsy environmental policies, and the questionable health of their products.

According to the Green Sports Alliance, the Cardinals are committed to showing that a franchise can be successful both on the field and in the operation of its ballpark.

Partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Sports Greening Project since 2008, the Cardinals have developed a comprehensive strategy for efficient stadium operations through their “4 A Greener Game” program. Furthermore, the Cardinals have approached this initiative with an understanding of the need for communitywide education and collaboration. As such, some big names have begun to notice these efforts.

Late this summer, President Obama’s staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality gave the Cardinals and several other sports organizations an award of recognition as leaders in advancing sustainability. Through a series of both retroactive and proactive upgrades at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals have put forth a “triple bottom line” approach to the stewardship of both their facility and the environment. One of the highlights of Busch Stadium’s new program came earlier this season when the Cardinals installed 106 solar electric panels. Expected to produce 37,000-kilowatt hours of energy each year, the panels will provide for the annual electrical power needs of all the retail stores at the ballpark. Another program has reduced overall energy and water use by 24% and 10%, respectively.

All told, the Cardinals have invested several hundred thousand dollars in environmental stewardship and are saving roughly the same amount each year due to the success of the programs. Not only are they enjoying a social return on investment, they are also reaping the costsaving benefits of an emerging energy industry. While it will be quite sometime before the United States turns significantly to energy from wind and solar farms – if it ever happens – organizations like the Cardinals are leading the way to feasible and impactful environmental stewardship that everyone should and easily can embrace. There may be no better industry to guide our country into a future of environmental stewardship, given baseball’s legacy as the national past time.

In late September, a French paper published a study conducted on a breed of corn known as NK603 which was developed by Monsanto. The study fed 200 rats corn over the two-year study. Rats who were fed Monsanto’s genetically modified corn were more than twice as likely to develop tumors, have organ damage, and experience premature death than rats who did not eat genetically modified corn. Following this study, Russia issued a temporary ban on imports of Monsanto corn, and the African Centre for Biosafety in South Africa is urging its government to ban Monsanto imports as well. Monsanto representatives argue against the reliability of the study and assert that their corn has passed all studies necessary to gain market approval. However, this is the first study to exceed a 90day span, giving credibility that it could reveal previously undiscovered health concerns. Monsanto has a history of releasing unsound products, such as genetically modified milk that was banned in the 1990s after it was shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. Nevertheless, scientists, many of whom do not affiliate with Monsanto, have objected to the methods of the French study, citing the small sample size and the propensity of the rats used to develop tumors even without dietary changes.

Whatever the outcome of the debate on this strain of corn, the controversy should remind students that despite Wash U’s emphasis on healthy and environmentally-friendly food, endowment does not come from pure sources. There may be nothing wrong with working with Monsanto when they provide our University with critical funds, but as Wash U students, we must recognize the strings attached with this relationship.

My goal... improving and empowering the communities around me.

Rocking out with the Stereotypes

Photography

allows me to

capture the world as I see it

My motto: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

So inspiring: meeting John Legend during his visit to campus last spring Marcus Brown (right), shown with Professor Jack Kirkland, will graduate in May 2013 with an urban studies major. This summer, he worked with Kirkland on an East St. Louis community development project.

Getting to know myself...

For me, college has been a process of finding myself and then translating that new knowledge into a career I want to pursue.

My experience at Wash. U. opened my eyes to the world of social work. Through a class with Professor Kirkland, I learned about community development efforts in East St. Louis.

Bringing my story to life...

As a Gephardt Goldman Fellow, I undertook the project as a career pathway to social economic development in social work, and to showcase the revitalization of East St. Louis with “The Helping Village.” My internship spanned over the first phase of development. Engaging in site visits to federal agencies, businesses, and community centers aided our work

Up next...

Fusing my passion for people and social impact to improve and empower entire communities.

FROM PASSION SPRINGS PURPOSE

“Optimize your experience. When you’re at the crossroads of

coasting or challenging yourself - choose to challenge yourself.”

Upcoming Events Workgroup: Government, Politics, and Public Policy Internships and Jobs: Oct. 12 - Nov. 30, Friday’s at 12 pm.

Would you like to learn more about how to search for opportunities that make a difference through policy, diplomacy, intelligence, service, etc? Join a group of like-minded students to stay motivated and share information and resources.

Peace Corps Info Session: Oct. 17, 6 - 7 pm at Mallinckrodt Center, Multipurpose Room (Lower Level) Learn about today’s Peace Corps and volunteers’ work in emerging and essential areas such as information technology and business development, and contributing to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

- Marcus’ Career Tip

Upcoming Job & Internship Deadlines National Nuclear Security Administration Compass Lexecon Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) American Council on Renewable Energy A Better Chicago Dept of Justice - Environment and Natural Resources Division Atlantic Community.org Apply, RSVP, and read more in CAREERlink at careercenter.wustl.edu.

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