The Politics Factory

Biddy Martin's Public Challenge

Mike Wacker — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:00:00 -0400

What began as a 231-word blog post criticizing outgoing provost Biddy Martin has escalated into war - well, at least a press release war in the Wisconsin legislature.

Libel, The Chronicle, and The Sun

Mike Wacker — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:04:46 -0400

Burnt by hot coffee? Don't like what someone else what wrote about you? In America, we deal with these kinds of problems by sueing the pants off of the other party. However, while one woman sucessfully sued McDonalds because her coffee was too hot, a Cornell alumnus unsuccesfully sued Cornell University and its publication, the Cornell Chronicle, because it published an unflattering article about him.

The Lines are Drawn

Mike Wacker — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:59:37 -0400

At first glance, you may think I am referring to the general election, now that Obama has officially clinched the nomination. But to be honest, the shorter Republican primary was too long, so by now I have had my fair share of election politics. However, given the historical significance of Obama's candidacy, I will make a brief remark since he became the first black candidate to win either the Republican or Democratic primary.

Clinton's New Bag of Tricks

Mike Wacker — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:07:58 -0400

Hillary has to bow out of the race...eventually. While I would initially set a timeline that ends shortly after the last primaries on June 3rd, I must quickly remind myself that this is Clinton. I probably would be better off trying to get Bush to set a withdrawal date for Iraq than trying to get Hillary to set a withdrawal date for her candidacy.

Obama may be oh-so-close to the nomination now, but this may be as close as he will be for a while. Although he does not need many more delegates to clinch the nomination, Clinton probably will change the math (the real math, not the one in her mind) soon.

The French Obsession

Mike Wacker — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:01:19 -0400

A description of French President Nicholas Sarkozy as dynamic would only touch the surface of his personality. While his defeat of Jacques Chirac finally gave me a reason to like the French, L'American (as he's called) has gone on to become a national obsession across the Atlantic Ocean according to The New York Times.

The article leads with a psychiatrist identifying a new mental illness: obsessive Sarkosis. It gets even more interesting than that, and if I read this article without knowing who it was about, I would go for a mix of the Miley Cyrus and a crazy stalker obsession.

And you thought Obamamania was bad.

Obama Plays the (Other) Race Card

Mike Wacker — Fri, 23 May 2008 19:37:13 -0400

Oppose illegal immigration? In that case, you may be responsible for xenophobia and hate crimes, according to Obama:

"A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year. If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen."

So much for all of Obama's talk to disagree agreeably.

Appeasement: What Does This Mean?

Mike Wacker — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:54:13 -0400

President Bush made waves in the media today, comparing negotiating with "terrorists and radicals" to negotiating with Hitler. The media quickly reacted by declaring this a veiled swipe at Obama and other Democrats. To quote CNN at the time I wrote this blog, "President Bush launched a sharp but veiled attack Thursday on Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats, suggesting they favor 'appeasement' of terrorists..." Here are some of the highlights of what Bush said.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."

"As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.'"

A Response to Arana's Arguments

Mike Wacker — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:41:32 -0400

With the excitement of the Democratic primary coming close to the end after Indiana and North Carolina and a break between finals on my part, I figure I owe Gabriel Arana a response after his last column viciously attacked a column I wrote on science, belief and LGBT issues. Now in my last blog on the Democratic primary, I noted that while the primary looked close since Obama and Clinton took one state each, a closer look revealed that all the signs pointed Obama's way. Likewise, while some of Arana's arguments sound compelling at first, an in depth look reveals that they do not hold up at all under closer scrutiny.

Indiana, North Carolina, and Beyond: Numbers and Asterisks

Mike Wacker — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:30:00 -0400

Given the nature of this Democratic primary, it only makes sense that Obama would take one state and Clinton would take the other. However, Obama soundly defeated Clinton in North Carolina while Clinton narrowly won a nail-biter in Indiana, and North Carolina has more voters and delegates as well. I would even say that tonight symbolizes the race in general; although this has proved to be a very close battle, all the signs are pointing to Obama if one looks deeper.

An Inside Look at Ron Paul, Part 3

Mike Wacker — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

This three-part series about GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul is based on a UWire conference call he recently participated in with colleges and universities across the nation. The original audio of the conference call can be found here. Additionally, the audio podcast of this article, downloadable here and also playable at the bottom of this article, will contain the audio from the conference call wherever Paul is quoted.

An Inside Look at Ron Paul, Part 2

Mike Wacker — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Ron Paul on the Issues

An Inside Look at Ron Paul, Part 1

Mike Wacker — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Who is Ron Paul, and Who Supports Him?

An Early Call Perhaps Too Early to Call

Mike Wacker — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:59:59 -0500

John Edwards noted that over 99 percent of people have not yet voted. Lou Dobbs blasted the media and its pundits for extrapolating the fate of the race so far ahead in time. Mitt Romney leads the Republican race by the one statistic that counts. For the many battles the candidates have fought so far, they still have a large war to wage. Although Iowa and New Hampshire will always hold a special place at the front end of the Presidential primaries, with both contests settled and done, have too many pundits overemphasized the influence of these and other early states?

Many times, both the pundits and polls have proven wrong. Clinton's surprising comeback in New Hampshire completely caught the media off guard.

A Revival for Romney in New Hampshire

Mike Wacker — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 11:22:52 -0500

Although Republicans have sparred in as many as ten debates before this one, few debates have proven as meaningful as this one. With actual election results coming in, the looming implications with regard to actual votes and actual delegates have raised the stakes for every candidate. Romney, who invested numerous resources in the early states, must win in New Hampshire after a stunning defeat in Iowa. McCain, having revived his campaign, has to repeat his 2000 win in New Hampshire to make the momentum last. Huckabee, surging from his win in Iowa, needs to show that he can his hold his own outside of states like Iowa and South Carolina.

Iowa and the GOP: Looking Back and Forward

Mike Wacker — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 23:03:41 -0500

With the results coming in in Iowa, Huckabee has not just won, but he won decisively. But what does this mean for the national race? After all, neither Reagan, Clinton, nor the younger Bush won in Iowa. On the other hand, Kerry definitely came into Iowa as the underdog against the powerful frontrunner Dean, but he also came out as the winner not only of Iowa but eventually the Democratic nomination. The number of interpretations of the Iowa outnumbers the number of the candidates, so here are some thoughts to make sense of this.

Although Huckabee has captured the race in Iowa, he still has a long way to go to capture the nomination. He largely rode the back of evangelicals to win Iowa--to the point where one unaffiliated GOP analyst compared it disparagingly to a Robertson victory in Iowa--but he walks into a strange new land in New Hampshire, a land where evangelicals hold considerably less influence.

CNN's Inaccurate Fact-Check on Romney

Mike Wacker — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:26:45 -0500

When journalists perform a fact check, the reader expects it will be, well...factual, or at least more accurate than the ad in question. Unfortunately, CNN's recent analysis by Howard Kurtz, which checks Mitt Romney's two negative ads against McCain and Huckabee, fulfills neither criteria. By their own standards, CNN not only failed to do enough research for this analysis, but they also made statements with questionable validity.

To start off, the CNN analysis questions Romney's accusation that McCain voted to let illegal immigrants stay in America permanently. It instead asserts that the legislation actually "would have required illegal immigrants to return to their home countries and pay a fine for breaking the law before applying for legal status."

Perfect the Jews?

Mike Wacker — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

So Ann Coulter '84 apparently made some controversial comments; what else is new? During her most recent spat, Coulter proclaimed that all Jews need to be perfected into Christians on CNBC's Big Idea. The host of Big Idea, Donny Deutsch—who is a Jew—found himself justifiably taken aback by her comments, but in response demonstrated a much higher level of character, in spite of his need for "perfection." While Coulter may righteously profess the tenets of her own faith, her insensitive and cruel remarks showed her own imperfect flaws in her words, theology, and political ideology.

Not Your Stereotypical Black

Mike Wacker — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0400

In an era where speaking out against the excesses of affirmative action can generate accusations of racism and one too many things can be blamed on whites, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only African-American, provides a fresh perspective on racial issues. Although he certainly has faced the evils of racism growing up, Thomas took a different path, questioning the value of affirmative action and refusing to think like your stereotypical black. In return, his nomination to the Supreme Court was almost derailed by allegations of sexual harassment in what Thomas refers to as a "high-tech lynching," and over his career, many blacks (and whites) who have clamored for diversity have at the same time lambasted Thomas for setting diversity back and disgracing his own race.

The Loaded Implications of Gender Neutrality

Mike Wacker — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Come on, over 20 other colleges have it, including Harvard. You can also have it off-campus. Why not on campus? These reasons and others for gender-neutral housing, stated in a resolution proposed to the Student Assembly, offer a poor rationale for the policy. Frankly, who cares about Harvard? And what about the hundreds of other colleges without gender-neutral housing; do they not count?

Hillary's Fatally Flawed Foreign Policy

Mike Wacker — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Since I still am somewhat new to this whole blogging niche, I may make mistakes at times, such as praising Clinton for her foreign policy. Granted, she rightly rebuked Obama for his unilateral threat against our ally Pakistan (as I mentioned in my last blog), but why did she make this decision? Because she has all this wisdom and experience that Obama does not, or because Obama said the exact opposite thing earlier? I must apologize to my readers for not noticing this. After all, although Hillary criticized Obama for taking nuclear weapons off the table for the purpose of diplomacy, Hillary suggested the same thing herself for Iran back in 2006.