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.

The Beginning of the End of the 2010 American Midterm Elections

By Maggie Palin

There are several things that you can count on every time Labor Day comes and goes. Our minds tell us it’s the end of summer (even if it really does not become fall until the Autumnal equinox), kids fill up their backpacks with brand-new school supplies for their first day of school, workplace water cooler debate reverts to talk of fantasy football leagues and BCS standings, and white pants get buried in the back of the closet until next summer. And unless you live in one of the handful of states that have meaningful elections in the off-years, the Labor Day of an even term year—such as this year—brings with it one more important milestone: the official kick-off to the general election campaign. Yes it is that time of year again, when our roads and sidewalks become littered with yard signs and leaflets, when our phone lines bombarded with phone calls from survey research firms, and our TV and radio waves become filled with political advertisements.

Campaigns aren’t the only ones telling us who to vote for in November, however. While the media has been writing and rewriting the political debate for months now the voting electorate is finally reading and digesting the message.

So what did the voters learn from the mainstream media today?

• The Washington Post: “Another reason for a big GOP blowout at Midterms”
• The New York Times: “State Gains Would Give Redistricting Edge to GOP”
• The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Democrats mobilize to thwart GOP ‘tsunami’”
• Politico: “Latest polls predict a blow-out loss for Democrats in November”
• MSNBC.com: “Poll: GOP advantage ahead of midterms”

All of these headlines have one major theme in common—that the GOP will win big in November. While I am cautiously optimistic myself that the GOP will take back many, if not all, of the seats it has lost in Washington over the past two cycles, the fact that the news is essentially calling the race on the first day that the average American pays attention does worry me.

The media has been known to distort the truth in the past for commercial gain. Many Americans also consider the mainstream media to be politically biased to one political ideology or another. Regardless, having the mainstream media handicap the race at this juncture is harmful to the democratic process. If swing and undecided voters believe the race is over and the GOP has won in a landslide, they may feel that their vote is not necessarily and skip the ballot box on November 2nd. Long-term Democratic voters who have not engaged in the process thus far may become energized at the thought of losing Congress and tighten up the race. The best-case scenario for Republicans is that the Republican base continues to become mobilized and turns out in heavy numbers on Election Day. In short, having the media call the race this early in the game does nothing but hamper the political process rather than keep the American public engaged.

Whether the predictions from today’s papers are right we will not know for approximately eight more weeks. But as the unelected fourth estate of government, the media should go back to just reporting the facts, and not shaping the message. That job belongs to the American people—and the representatives they elect to Washington.