Uncle Sam needs you to vote!

By Maggie Palin

Yesterday marked the one month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City. Since then more than 950 protests have been held in more than 80 countries – including many in places where there are no financial centers.

Many have compared the Occupy movement to last year’s Tea Party movement, as both were formed to show one’s disapproval of the status quo. The Occupy movement began as a way for individuals to express their frustration at those in the financial sector who they believed helped the economy descend into a freefall over the past few years, while the Tea Party movement began as a reaction to the policies and legislation of the Democratic-led Congress and White House in Washington. But that is where the similarities end.

The Tea Party movement included rallies of various shapes and sizes, but they did not make up the core of the operation. When they did rally, the Tea Party members would usually coalesce for a few hours to make their point, usually on a day of significance, such as 9/12, outside of a legislative office. Instead, the focus of the Tea Party movement revolved around the good old ballot box. The Tea Party drafted candidates for Congress that eschewed their principles and worked hard to elect them to office, and which resulted in the Republican party flipping the House and nearly taking back the Senate last November. They were participating in the Democratic process much in the same way that the Athenians did over 2,000 years ago.

Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots, however, highlight the dirty side of peacefully assembling – literally! Participants are sleeping in city parks and sidewalks picketing and creating public havoc. By camping out the protestors are costing these already financially-strapped cities thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, in policing fees and clean up (that is, when the city is able to clean up from the protests). Many of them are recent college grads who have not had much luck in finding a job and find themselves laden in debt, and rather than spending their time churning out job applications – like the rest of us did – they are blaming others for their problems and doing little to try to fix them. And now that the Democratic party and major unions such as the AFL-CIO are fully supporting the movement has shifted from a wakeup call to Wall Street to a cry for Marxism with no end in sight.

I am not endorsing the principles of one movement over the other, and I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment and the right to peaceably assemble. But if I had to judge the movements on their overall tactics and effectiveness, I would wholeheartedly crown the Tea Party the victor. It pains me to give props to my former Governor (and more unfortunately, former Mayor) for things that do not involve Philadelphia sports teams, but Ed Rendell deserves them for his reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement:

“Look, you’ve made your point, you don’t think by sitting here you’re going to bring about change in law just by sitting here. No legislative body is going to be blackmailed.

“I mean the guys in Philadelphia said they’re going to be here all winter. Well that’s silly. You’ve made your point, you’ve gotten about all the publicity you’re going to get. Now get on with your lives and if you really care about this stuff, organize at the ballot box.”

And so my final thoughts for the members of the Occupy movement: If you really want to make a difference, register to vote. And then, go to your local polling place on November 8th and cast your ballot. Then, keep returning to your polling place every November and vote until your point is made. That, my friends, is democracy in action, and that is America is the longest-standing democracy in the world today.

Youth Voters and the 2012 Presidential Election

By Maggie Palin

In my mind one of the most fascinating periods in modern campaign history is undoubtedly the spring and summer of 2007. The entire country was engrossed in following the candidates crisscross Iowa and New Hampshire. Congressional and party leaders were lining up in droves behind their chosen nominee, and you couldn’t go a few hours without hearing something new about the campaign trail. I even remember worrying that some uneducated voters would think that the election was that November, and not the one after.

Fast-forward four years to 2011 and you wouldn’t even think that the presidential campaign season has started if you didn’t live in Iowa, New Hampshire, or within the D.C. Beltway. Part of it has to do with the fact that the media isn’t engrossed in covering the campaign the way it was four years ago. Having the Democratic nominee already set probably also helps. Personally I believe that the populous has just become apathetic, especially towards the current crop of declared candidates. None of the key players are really that exciting. The candidate pool boasts several has-beens (former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich), Mormons whose religion just doesn’t seem to sit well with the evangelical base of the party (former Governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Jon Huntsman of Utah), and ultra-conservatives pining for the Tea Party vote (Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Texas Governor Rick Perry).

All of this truly scares me. Not as a Republican, not as a political operative, but as a proud member of the millennial generation. I saw two-thirds of my peers vote for a president in 2008 that ran an elaborate PR campaign based around the words “hope” and “change” rather than discuss anything substantive on the trail. It also didn’t help that Barack Obama established himself as a true rock star by taking a break from campaigning in July 2008 to tour Europe, or by breaking tradition and accepting the Democratic nomination for President at Invesco at Mile High Stadium in front of a giant Parthenon-esque backdrop rather than at the convention site.

On the surface what’s not to like about Obama’s programs designed to help the millennial voter? One of the oft-overlooked parts of the comprehensive healthcare reform package of 2010 was that it provided Americans under the age of 26 the opportunity to stay on their parents’ or guardians’ healthcare plan regardless of their circumstance. Obama’s administration has also worked diligently to help take some of the burden off of college graduates by eliminating student loans for those who go into public service upon graduation. But all of these new programs have resulted in trillions of dollars added to the federal debt and a massive bloating of the federal budget that we just won’t be able to afford in years to come. And what my peers often forget when they lobby for things like universal healthcare and expanded welfare benefits is that we will be the ones paying for all of this when were in our middle age–and laden with college tuition for our children, mortgage payments, and the need to put aside money for our eventual retirement.

I kept telling myself that we could right this wrong, that we would retake Congress in 2010 (we almost got there) and hold onto both chambers while winning back the presidency in 2012. Yet the more I see the GOP field in action the more I wonder why we are giving Obama a second term. I can’t see the youth voter flocking around Santorum, or Bachmann, or Gingrich any more than they liked John McCain in 2008. We need a Republican who will help us find jobs and buy our first homes now but will do all this without mortgaging our future with high taxes and no social security funds. We need someone who respects our views on issues such as gay marriage and gun rights. I don’t know who this candidate is–or even if one exists–but unless the candidates start catering to their youngest voters Obama will certainly have no problem winning over this demographic next November, and in turn, retain his current residence.