NOVEMBER 2012
2 0 1 n o i t c e l E 2
A NOTE From the Editors
T
the chronicle’s news & Culture maga zine
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Matthew Chase and Sonia Havele PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Addison Corriher Melissa Yeo Chris Cusack Ciaran O’Connor Nicole Kyle Yeshwanth Kandimalla
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Emily Feng, Andrew Kragie, Hector Rivera Samantha Lachman, Samantha Brooks, Adarsh Dave CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Sophia Durand, Samantha Lachman ILLUSTRATOR Alan Dippy GENERAL MANAGER ADVERTISING DIRECTOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR OPERATIONS MANAGER DIGITAL SALES MANAGER
Chrissy Beck Rebecca Dickenson Barbara Starbuck Mary Weaver Megan McGinity
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Towerview Magazine
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Towerview is a subsidiary of The Chronicle and is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profit corporation independent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors. To reach The Chronicle’s editorial office at 301 Flowers Building, call (919) 684-2663 or fax (919) 684-4696. To reach The Chronicle’s business office at 103 West Union Building, call (919) 684-3811. To reach The Chronicle’s advertising office at 101 West Union Building, call (919) 684-3811 or fax (919) 684-8295. Contact the advertising office for information on subscriptions. Visit The Chronicle and Towerview online at dukechronicle.com 2010 The Chronicle, Box 90858, Durham, N.C. 27708. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior, written permission of the business office. Each individual is entitled to one free copy.
2 | TOWERVIEW
Dear readers, What do Duke, the College of the Ozarks and the University of Scranton have in common? They are all listed in the Huffington Post’s list of the most politically apathetic colleges—at the top of that list, we may add. Though the survey’s research methods are questionable at best, this ranking is by no means unreasonable. Election participation has never been one of Duke’s strong suits; in 2008, when 51 percent of youth voters cast ballots nationwide, only 36 percent of students living on campus voted. With the exception of a small cohort of dedicated students, political participation on campus seems to have remained relatively flat since ‘08; often times, voter activism doesn’t seem to expand beyond a changed Facebook status or a laptop bumper sticker. But some signs indicate that the story is a different one: turnout at the oncampus, one-stop early voting for the May 8 primary seems to have been stronger than ever; campus has recently been inundated with political leaders representing all sides of the spectrum, ranging from Jon Huntsman to Gary Johnson to Howard Dean; and the regional proximity of the Democratic National Convention at least increased students’ desires to attend, even if those hopes were overridden by poor weather. Most importantly, students have played a central role in this recent scale-up of political activism; Duke Student Government leaders were behind the call to establish the voting station on campus in the Spring, and, more recently, students participated in an American Grand Strategy election debate. At a time when the importance of the “youth vote” seems to be slipping—recent polls have predicted that fewer younger voters will cast ballots, and Obama has lost a significant chunk of the margin he maintained four years ago—it’s possible that Duke students have regained their political voice. And next week will likely be the ultimate metric of whether or not the political tone on campus has shifted in the past four years. The stories in this Election Issue cover a broad spectrum of topics, mostly relating in some shape or form to the decisive vote many of us will be casting for the very first time on Tuesday. From a piece on a North Carolina political committee that advocates for pro-choice Democratic women running for office to a piece on how health care reform is affecting medical students and leaders of the Duke hospital system to a personal essay on the meaning of the American Dream and its embodiment in our two presidential candidates, we hope these stories shed light on election-related topics that seemed to have escaped major news outlets while provide some last-minute perspective in the days leading up to the election. Enjoy—and vote!
PLATFORM
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NOV 2012 • VOL. 14 • issue 3
Blah dee blah bee bhad yo what that talk yo walk like that yo ALSO +Political adver tisements over the years (p.12)
THE ISSUES
How will education, health 26 care and foreign policy play into this election?
foreign policy • social policy • educa national security • defense spendin foreign policy • Afghanistan • Iraq •healt Arab Spring • foreign policy • education • job creation • national secu health reform • foreign policy • educatio gay marriage • Arab Spring • foreign po tion • job creation • national security • reform • foreign policy • Afghanistan • marriage • Arab Spring education • job • defense spending • health reform • fo Iraq • health reform • gay marriage • A • social policy • education • job creation fense spending • health reform • foreign •health reform • gay marriage • Arab S ation • national security • defense spendin 4
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PRIMARY
Michael Munger: Get to know one of Duke’s most well-known academics—who also happened to run for governor four years ago
CAMPAIGN
Six More Years: What will Hugo Chávez’s four th term in office mean for America?
18 CAPITOL One group’s fight to keep pro-choice Democratic women in Congress
ON THE COVER Towerview goes behind The campaign meets the the gatesIllustration of severalby local campus. homeless Alan Dippyshelters
14 COUNTY A look inside Scotland County, the county with the highest unemployment rate in the state BY SAMANTHA BROOKS and NICOLE KYLE
BY SAMANTHA LACHMAN
31
RHETORIC
A first-generation American citizen questions what the “American Dream” really means this November
CANDIDATES Behind the scenes 22 of America’s third largest political party BY EMILY FENG
TOWERVIEW | 3
Primary
“You should do things you’re not good at.” 4 | TOWERVIEW
CHRONICLE FILE PHOTO
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THE NUTTY PROFESSOR Story by Emily Feng
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t is a Friday afternoon, and in the sleepy buzz of Perkins Library, Michael Munger pours out a small cup of tea for me. Apparently, Munger has carried a porcelain teapot, replete with a Qing dynasty pattern, along with two, tiny matching porcelain cups down from his office to von der Heyden pavilion in Perkins. If the setting is incongruous with the action, Munger certainly does not notice. Though turning 55 this year, Munger still retains the appearance of a stately frat star turned academic; I almost miss him ensconced in his armchair due to his uncanny ability to look like a student from behind. Serenely, oblivious to his slightly out-of-place appearance, he welcomes me cordially, and we begin to talk. Munger is an esteemed Duke professor. From 2000 to 2010, he chaired the political science department. He has written extensively in respected social science journals and has managed to publish rather prolifically as well, penning works with serious-sounding titles like Ideology and The Theory of Political Choice. In addition to his robust academic output, Munger teaches an introduction class for the politics, philosophy and economics certificate program (which he directs) and in 2004 was awarded, based on popular student choice, an undergraduate teaching award. On paper, Munger appears to be a perennial intellectual, one who has been fortunate to excel in both academia and in the classroom. In real life, he positively pops off the pages. Missing from his impressive curriculum vitae are some interesting tidbits, though not all of them are laudatory. Unorthodox is the path that has taken him to his present position. Munger was not always the erudite he is today. He was born into circumstances quite apart from the affluent atmosphere of Duke, in the small, very poor town of Gotha, Florida—which he matter-of-factly informed me no longer exists, Disney World having paved it over. Asked to summarize his town’s most distinctive characteristics, he pauses for a beat: “we had chickens and dirt. And now it’s all stores where people from South America buy terrible T-shirts made in China.” His high school had three tracks, and Munger “was in the bottom track with the lazy kids.” In the majority of his classes, he was the only white student. His friends
were largely black. Many of Gotha’s inhabitants ended up “working, driving a grove tractor,” a fate that Munger seemed likely to follow. His approach to college, at first, was no different. “I wanted to go to University of Florida and smoke dope with my friends, but my parents saw through that and sent me to Davidson College,” he recalls. At Davidson, a small liberal arts college near Charlotte, Munger majored in mathematics. The transition was not altogether easy, however. Davidson classes were actually difficult. Munger therefore did what he knew best; he flunked most of his classes his freshmen year. As punishment, his advisor (“a hag of a teacher,” he recounts) placed him into some of the hardest math and engineering courses she could find, in the hope that the shock would induce him to perform better. She succeeded, though not due to her anticipated reasons. Rather immodestly, Munger explains how he found math was easy for him, especially since he actually began to do his homework diligently this time around. Even today, the “the combination of social and formal mathematical problems that economics represents” continues to fascinate him. This interest would later lead him to pursue a thesis in a topic now hotly debated among politicians and policymakers, but in which Munger was one of the first researchers: electoral campaign finance. “Nothing was new or original about my thinking,” Munger hastens to explain, “but no one had thought about doing something like that before simply because the data didn’t exist.” Presently, Munger is most well-known in academic circles for his work on the self-invented topic of “euvoluntary exchange.” To quote one of his own papers, euvoluntary exchange is “truly voluntary” exchange; in other words, both parties exchanging goods are fully informed and not coerced into making the transfer. His argument is that preventing such euvoluntary exchanges from happening through regulation, for example, actually inhibits actors from reducing, rather than increasing (as one would intuitively assume), socially unjust results such as the unequal distribution of wealth. A common example is the banning of sweatshop labor, which we, as morally sensitive and prosperous citizens, should probably oppose. Yet TOWERVIEW | 5
forbidding such labor effectively puts people out of work, leaving laborers and owners no alternative employment. Logically reconfiguring problems to upend seemingly commonsense—but fallacious—conclusions is one of Munger’s specialties. But Munger may be most wellknown for his scene-stealing cameos in two popular YouTube videos, “Fear the Boom and Bust” and “Fight of the Century,” unabashedly nerdy rap-battle dramatizations of the prosaically academic work of economists John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek. Like Munger himself, the videos are a work of juxtaposition between two seemingly incompatible opposites. It’s at once gloriously geeky and ingratiatingly “hip,” what with all its bling-festooned academics and strange hip hop gestures, which I am told are called “slim shady chops.” Despite his extensive political science work, Munger has never taken a political science course. His first stab at graduate school had him pursuing a doctorate in mathematics rather than economics, for which he eventually received his Ph.D. The mathematics path ended abruptly when he flunked out (again) his first year, largely because he “smoked of a lot of hasheesh.” Munger stops to contemplate the unlikely confluence of events that have brought him to Duke as a respected political scientist. His biggest influence? “Dumb luck,” he concludes. During his exposition on his hooligan years, Munger is oddly cerebral and deadpan. He recounts the exploits of his younger, wilder days without a trace of shame, looking me dead straight. His odd habit of looking fixedly at some point in space while speaking or just past one’s shoulder, suggests he is talking from some great mental depth. It is also an attribute of the sobering fact that Munger is slowly going blind—his vision is so poor that he can no longer drive himself. Munger now speaks about his old self as if it were another, separate person. “I was lucky someone didn’t kill me. I don’t know what that person wanted, or why that person felt entitled to something he didn’t work for,” he admits. 6 | TOWERVIEW
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he next time I see him, Munger is teaching yet again, but to a different audience. This time, it’s a group of well-dressed, midlevel bureaucrats from the People’s Republic of China, a country in which Munger has begun doing some more serious work in addition to his research in Chile. The attendees sit motionless, heads propped up inquisitively as Munger confidently proceeds with his lecture. Every so often, they laugh incredulously at Munger’s frequent jokes, as if such humor is uncommon in the presentations they are used to. The irony of the situation is apparent; today’s lesson is about capitalism and regulation, a lesson which the Chinese delegates seem to take to heartily although their own government strictly regulates China’s economic activity. More specifically, Munger is explaining the price mechanism, one of the major arguments for capitalism because it theoretically provides for the efficient allocation of scarce resources with minimal central organization and knowledge. “There’s no mechanism like this in socialism,” he concludes. But of course, he concedes, capitalism can also fail catastrophically. Munger’s political evenhandedness is notable, especially in today’s political context where extremism tends to win over aisle-straddlers. His entry point into political science was purely intellectual, focused on the deeper structural concerns over how institutions or rational behavior may shape the messier political outcomes we observe. This mathematically detached approach to politics persists today. “Mike is remarkably non-partisan,” says political science professor Scott DeMarchi, a former student and now colleague of Munger’s. Brutal, economic rationality rather than partisan ideology informs his opinions. If Munger’s positions seem radical, it’s only because we are irrational. But no matter how thick-skulled his opponents, he believes in “persuasion, not force.” On campus, his political affiliations also garner attention. It may be surprising to learn that Munger, a person so strongly associated with
the Libertarian party, was not always a Libertarian but in fact a lifelong Republican. The change came in 2003, when two events coincided within a month. The first push came in the form of Rick Santorum, “who I actually think is evil personified,” Munger states with all seriousness. A dinner with him at the Washington Duke Inn left a sour taste in Munger’s mouth. “Three weeks later George Bush attacked Iraq, and I thought, these are not my people.” His political principles remained unchanged, but his affiliation shifted; he looked around him and realized that “there were no Republicans like that (socially liberal, fiscally conservative) anymore.” Something needed to be done. So he ran for governor. In 2008, compelled to break the binary of parties on the ticket, Munger ran as the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate on the Libertarian ticket because his opponents’ only qualifications were, he opined, “a near-total absence of self-doubt.” His platform included
“[rick santorum] is evil personified.”
“Given how naturally narcissistic and arrogant I am, it was excellent,” he laughs. “I do have a certain superficial glibness.” To celebrate the end of his election, Munger decided to drive the length of North Carolina’s coast for three days straight, with his election manager Barbara Howe. Howe, who is now representing the Libertarian Party in her run for state governor, fondly recollects her road trip with Munger in his van—“it was a big van, a really big van,” she keeps repeating—along I-64. At the very end of the trip, “we set up a yard sign on the ocean on the beach,” she recounts. What transpired next is all captured on camera. In the video, Munger looks dead straight into the camera lens, his tweed jacket and loose slacks whipping about in the wind. “This is really the only way that a Libertarian or any third party candidate can get any attention,” he proclaims, before calmly walking into the waves. A few seconds later, already waist deep and in true Munger fashion, he swan dives into the ice-blue November water.
M
uch like the duality of characters he exhibited in college, Munger still has two sides to his personality. Publicly, he’s a bit of a big man on campus. He likes people and he likes talking. Yet in private— when he’s not running for governor
or teaching Chinese bureaucrats— Munger is more quiet and reserved. “I would say he’s actually an introvert,” claims DeMarchi, who initially bonded with Munger by spending “a bazillion hours” on an online strategy game called Heroes of Might and Magic. “The way we met was walking around campus and talking about models,” DeMarchi says. “He’s got a big personality and he’s funny and he’s real good at [game theory/economic] models.” The trajectory of Munger’s life is illuminative. Doing everything right does not guarantee success. But neither do past actions and failures condemn us to a future of similar path. Willpower, with a certain measure of selfconviction and panache, can achieve phoenix-like transformations. From the unlikeliest of places and from the poorest of students came a respected academic. Fickle chance may have an unsung role. But the possibility of redemption never dies. For Munger, teaching is a foremost priority. For what he would like to be remembered, he readily responds: “in writing and in teaching.” Munger hasn’t showed signs of abating or selfpity and plans to continue his educational responsibilities. Oh, and one more thing: “It turns out when he jumped into the ocean, he had pneumonia, though we didn’t know it at the time,” Barbara Howe laughs. “He recovered.” n
PHOTOS BY SOPHIA DURAND
traditionally liberal positions such as supporting gay marriage and a more welcoming “high wall, wide gate” immigration policy, while pushing forward some more free-market positions like a school-voucher program in low-income areas. People agreed with him. George McClendon, the then-dean of Trinity, officially endorsed Munger. He received about 100 campaign contributions from Duke faculty and students. The Chronicle’s independent editorial board officially endorsed his candidacy, calling Munger “refreshingly honest.” Ruefully, Munger observes that “if the election had been held on Duke’s campus, I would have had a shot.” Munger lost the election, though really in some ways, Munger insists, he won: “My very humble goal for success was to get 2 percent,” which would keep the Libertarians on the ballot; he received 2.7 percent. “So I won.” Though he was severely underfunded, Munger nonetheless found seeing theory in action exciting. Munger now recommends, mostly seriously, that all political scientists run for local office at some point. “You should do things you’re not good at,” he muses. Work it harder, make it better—the c0llege- slacker-turnedacademic-star mentality was coming back.
TOWERVIEW | 7
Racing in Venezuela Last month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez defeated Henrique Capriles to secure his fourth term after fourteen years in office. ANDREW KRAGIE and HECTOR RIVERA explore how this happened and what it means for America.
8 | TOWERVIEW
A month before the presidential election in the United States, almost 15 million Venezuelan voters went to the polls for the first truly competitive presidential race in 14 years. The Venezuelan opposition to Hugo Chávez united behind an energetic and charismatic challenger, Henrique Capriles. After more than a decade of landslides in favor of Latin America’s foremost anti-American demagogue, polls predicted a tight contest. Americans have closely watched the country that forms the backbone of the region’s socialist bloc yet simultaneously earns 80 percent of government revenue from the more than one million barrels of oil it sells to the United States every day. The Venezuelan presidential election featured two extraordinary politicians, resulting in one of the most exciting recent political contests in the Western Hemisphere. Uncertainty about Chávez’s health colored the entire
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías • Born July 28, 1954 in Sabaneta, Barinas, Venezuela • Grew up in a modest household with two schoolteacher parents • Graduated from the Military Academy of Venezuela in 1975 and advanced to lieutenant colonel • Led a coup against the democratic government in 1992. Built a national following and spent only two years in prison thanks to a presidential pardon • Won the presidency in 1998 with 56 percent of the vote while running as an independent against the two long-established political par ties
Henrique Capriles Radonski
race. After announcing in June 2011 that he underwent an operation to remove an abdominal tumor, the normally exuberant leader stepped away from the spotlight and spent much of his time undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba. Doctors and other political commentators routinely predicted his imminent death; a senior U.S. diplomat likened him to the Spanish legendary hero El Cid, leading his army into battle while mortally wounded, strapped into his saddle. For a time it seemed that the socialist leader might die at any moment without a viable successor to carry the banner of his United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Chávez’s leadership was weakened even further by ballooning domestic crises. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence reports that the national homicide rate quadrupled between 1998 and 2009. During that time, Caracas became the second-most violent city in the Western Hemisphere—surpassed only by Ciudad Juárez, the
epicenter of Mexico’s drug war. Corruption has risen to the point that Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization that assesses corruption worldwide, ranked Venezuela the 10th most corrupt country in the world, worse than even Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Critics accuse Chávez of squandering the country’s immense oil revenues on inefficient and opaque social programs called misiones. Citizens complain about frequent electricity blackouts and shortages of basic goods in grocery stores. Despite the extraordinary crises, 8 million Venezuelans reelected Chávez to a third six-year term. The incumbent won 55 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Capriles—an 11-point margin, winning 21 out of the 23 states. How could that happen? Americans might wonder how an incumbent could be reelected in the current climate, but independent experts trust the results. Hal Brands, an assistant professor in
PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
• Born July 11, 1972, in Caracas, Venezuela • His grandparents came from Poland after World War II. His family owns several businesses and introduced Kraft Foods to Venezuela in the 1950s • Studied law at Andrés Bello Catholic University • Elected to the Venezuelan congress in 1998, became a mayor in 2000 and just finished a fouryear term as governor of wealthy and populous Miranda state
TOWERVIEW | 9
public policy and history who specializes in Latin America, said he did not suspect any “cheating in the actual counting of votes.” Although Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the nongovernmental National Security Archive, was concerned about violence against Capriles supporters at rallies, he does not question the validity of the election. Most importantly, Capriles and the opposition have accepted the reported results. The ballots may have been counted honestly, but experts say that the campaign as a whole was not fair. Brands explains that “the playing field is not level” in Venezuela because Chávez uses state resources to reward his followers and punish those who vote against him. The president relies on massive oil revenues to fund social programs that have improved literacy and provided some services to the poor in a highly unequal country, but he ramps up social spending in election years to shore up support. He hosts a nationally televised show on which he rewards adoring voters for their loyalty with rent-free apartments and free refrigerators. Kornbluh also underscores Chávez’s “domination of the press.” News outlets self-censor criticism of the president for fear of losing their media licenses, which the government must reapprove every year. Brands says that the incumbent’s media advantage in Venezuela overwhelms a sitting president’s advantage in the United States, pointing to state television’s “fawning” coverage. He also said that some Venezuelans remain fearful of voting against Chávez after the government leaked a list of millions of voters who supported a recall vote in 2004; many of those voters lost jobs and government benefits.
10 | TOWERVIEW
Additionally, the president’s personal popularity draws the votes of millions of Venezuelans, particularly poor citizens who feel that Chávez defends them from the forces of imperialism. Duke senior and Venezuela native Jean-Marc Goguikian concedes the president’s “genius” in cultivating a fervent base, calling him “a good communicator, a savvy speaker” who manages to “disassociate himself from the problems” that face his country by deflecting blame onto government ministers. Kornbluh says that “Chávez’s great accomplishment is mobilizing and empowering great masses of poor people” who feel invested in his continuing power. A strong majority of Venezuelans disapproved of the government’s performance on economic, security, and corruption issues in a 2011 poll, yet 64 percent of the country approved of Chávez himself. Still, while Chávez won another six years in office on Oct. 7, his power at home and throughout the Americas has begun to recede. Although his margin of victory surprised most outside observers, it is certainly not the 63-to-37 spread he enjoyed only six years ago. This smaller margin points to the desire of more Venezuelans to change the current government—and Chávez might pay heed to the unprecedented six and half million votes for the opposition. Perhaps more importantly, Chávez’s popularity throughout the region has faded; President Barack Obama and center-left former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva—better-known as “Lula”—are twice as respected based on a Barómetro poll. Brands asserts that the Venezuelan president “has lost the battle for Latin America” and ceded regional leadership to politically moderate and economically vibrant Brazil. n
TOWERVIEW | 11
ELECTION
towerview takes o voters, politici behind this
12 | TOWERVIEW
N 2012
on the ians and issues presidential race
UNITED STATES POLITICAL CAMPAIGN MATERIALS COLLECTION, 1840-2009 AND UNDATED, DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, DUKE UNIVERSITY
TOWERVIEW | 13 xx
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aurinburg, N.C. — In 2009, lifetime Laurinburg resident Ira Edge graduated from UNC-Pembroke with a degree in chemistry. Upon graduation, Edge looked for work at local manufacturers as a chemist with long-term plans to attend pharmacy school. Campbell Soup Company rejected Edge because he was overqualified. Hand sanitizer manufacturer QualPack, LLC closed its doors. Edge’s options dwindled. As the financial crisis hit its hardest, companies had stopped hiring, and Edge’s wife, Tanya, lost her job at a local pawn shop. The young couple’s plans changed. The Edges opened Treasure City Pawn in early 2009. Located on the city’s increasingly barren Main Street, the pawn shop is one of the few lights in a modern ghost town, mostly because it provides quick income for the county’s more than 2,000 jobless residents. Abandoned and decaying storefronts flank Treasure City Pawn. Windows boarded up with plywood, these stores were once Laurinburg’s city center. A vacant pharmacy’s windows reveal medicine lined up on its shelves as if its owners closed shop one day and simply never returned. Storefronts are plastered with graffiti and black signs reading “CLOSED” in orange text. On a given Friday, sidewalks are bare, save for a few stragglers. Laurinburg is the capital of rural Scotland County, which has the highest unemployment rate—a staggering 17 percent—in North Carolina. In 2006, the county’s annual average unemployment rate hovered at 8.9 percent, four percentage points above the then-state average of 4.7 percent. Post-recession, Scotland County’s rate exceeds the state average by eight points. The jobs problem is at the forefront in this presidential election; voters consistently rank jobs as their top concern. President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney seem to promote their respective plans for job creation more than any other platform component. Ironically, the Edges’ store is located across the street from the Democrats for Scotland County office. The building’s aptly blue facade is plastered with signs toting “Obama for America.” A small crowd of predominantly elderly volunteers crowd around a projector inside, learning about voter registration. Scotland County is historically Democratic but as the unemployment rate continues to rise and fewer residents are able to find work, some are looking for a change at the top. Abandoned by industry According to the North Carolina Division of Employment Security, approximately 2,200 people in Scotland County’s workforce of about 13,000 are currently unemployed. This number does not include those who have stopped looking for work altogether. The county’s population hovers at 36,000, typical for a rural area in North Carolina. From 2006-2010, 29.5 percent of families in Scotland County lived below the poverty line, and the median household income from 2006-2010 was $29,368. The textile and manufacturing industries have historically driven Scotland County’s economy and job market. In 2000, unemployment numbers began to rise staggeringly as manufacturing companies and textile mills pulled out of the county due to closures and the transfer of production overseas. Fifteen manufacturing and textile plants have closed since 2000 resulting in the loss of 2,582 jobs. Private non-farm employment opportunities in Scotland County decreased by 37.9 percent in the last decade, according to the 2010 census. 14 | TOWERVIEW
HEL
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story and photos b
SAMANTHA BROO and NICOLE KYL
LP WANTED
welcome to Scotland County, where 17 percent of the workforce is unemployed
by
BROOKS LE Eddie Blackman, 53, has a history that’s not uncommon among Scotland County residents. He worked in textile but was let go after his company moved overseas. Now, he depends on disability benefits to support himself and currently has to live with his sister and brother-in-law. For residents who don’t qualify for disability, one of the only places to turn is a temporary job agency. Though “temps” are generally successful in finding short-term employment, the jobs are not always as helpful as some may hope. “There’s a lot of people hunting jobs. They’re going through temporary services, and they’re sending them all the way out to Bennettsville [in South Carolina, 28 miles away]. They have to drive out there for $7.50 an hour—that’s a long ways,” he said. “But going through temps is about the only way you can get a job. A lot of places are shutting down.” Since these closures, Scotland County has had trouble attracting new business. Although the county has made it onto a few shortlists for big industry plants and projects, it has not seen success in getting these companies to commit, said Scotland County Director for Economic Development Greg Icard. Icard was named to his position in 2008. Since then, he says there has been an uptick in commercial interest in the county but slowed execution. Earlier this year, for instance, Scotland was one of three choices for a manufacturer’s relocation. The company ultimately chose another state where a company that produced a similar type of product had closed. “The final variable for them was that there was a workforce that had done exactly what they needed. They could get up to speed quicker and require less of an investment for training,” Icard said. “In each individual case of companies going else-
where... we can work to mitigate some of the issues that can be changed and tweaked but usually it is some variable you don’t have a lot of control over.” A problematic workforce An even greater challenge than attracting jobs to the area is finding candidates equipped to fill existing open positions. Laurinburg Mayor Thomas Parker agrees that jobs are tough to find but notes that unemployment is two-fold, citing a wide skills gap and the prevalence of drug problems among candidates as two factors perpetuating unemployment in the area. “Our community has been hard hit,” said Parker. “But people just don’t hire people that can’t do the work or are a risk to their business.” Parker, who is the owner of small furniture store in Laurinburg, adds that a workforce full of former textile workers isn’t necessarily equipped for today’s jobs. “We have a high illiteracy rate,” he says. “We have one of the fastest growing community colleges. People have gone back to school because they have lost their jobs and been displaced.” There are five current job openings within the Scotland County government. All require a high school diploma and prefer some level of higher training or an associate’s degree. “People are willing to commute—we can provide the labor,” he adds, underscoring the effort residents are putting into the job search. “If we got jobs, our people have to be of a certain skill level and have to have a reasonable work ethic and need to be drug-free.” Industrial thread manufacturer, Service Thread, is one comTOWERVIEW | 15
pany in Laurinburg that Parker notes is confronting the skills gap and wellness problems among candidates. The company has 35 openings that pay $30,000 - $40,000 annually but is finding the positions tough to fill. Jay Todd is the chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Service Thread, which hired 35 people in January and is in the process of hiring 35 more—most of which are for entrylevel machine operators. Service Thread continues to expand in Scotland County due in part due to its historical commitment to the area and relatively low cost of doing business. But the company has not been completely exempt from financial challenges as it made some layoffs in 2008. Todd explained that Service Thread has a prescreening process for applicants that involves a background check for drug violations and violent crimes. Past drug violations have been a big problem for potential hires in the last five years, Todd says. Once a candidate is hired, they are subjected to a hair sample drug test. “About 30 percent of applicants selected for employment fail that test,” Todd said. “In our society, a poor rural area, problems like that tend to be prevalent.” Service Thread has also been challenged by the skills gap. Todd has received 200 applications for the 35 current openings. Only 20 percent of applicants possess the proper skill set. To upskill employees and train new ones, Service Thread has implemented an internal assessment program with compensation incentives. When this assessment process debuted in 2010, the company found that 48 percent of employees did not have the skills to succeed in their current position.
“30 percent OF APPLICANTS SELECTED FOR EMPLOYMENT FAIL [THE DRUG TEST].” - JAY TODD
Looking for work Further down Laurinburg’s abandoned Main Street—and across the railroad tracks Tanya Edge warns separate the safe
“IF I DON’T FIND WORK HERE I’M MOVING TO A DIFFERENT STATE.”
from the “not safe” part of town—is the office to which jobless Scotland County residents must turn. A small red awning and matching welcome mat frame the brick building that is the Scotland County JobLink Career Center, which operates as a middle-party between employers and individuals looking for work. Inside the office are research cubicles, a DMV-esque counter and a waiting area. Pamphlets advertise professional training courses at the local Richmond Community College and upcoming job fairs. A television blares an instructional video in the background: “Remember, it is said that it is easier to find a job once you have one... look for shortterm work while you conduct your job search... Deliver pizzas or go into retail.” Once someone submits their resume and applications, the center works to try to partner them with organizations looking to hire. Center Director Betty Galloway says her office has been bombarded particularly since major textile manufacturer Mohawk Industries closed last year with no sign of tapering off. “Ever since 2002, there’s been a decline in Scotland County,” she says. Of visitors to her office, Galloway says, “They just come in looking for a job and say, ‘Who’s hiring?’” The center offers various training programs like two-year degree funding assistance, re-employment job coaching and weekly workshops on how to prepare for interviews. “We have so many people in Scotland County looking for work, and yet we still have jobs but that need different skills levels than a lot of citizens have,” Galloway says. For some, like 28-year-old Amnetta McNair, the search can go on for months. McNair, like many other unemployed Scotland County natives, worked in manufacturing until she was laid off in October of last year. Since then, she’s gone to a number of lengths to find a job. “I’ve been doing everything,” she said. “I’ve been putting through the applications, I’ve been coming [to the unemployment center], I’ve submitted applications through the organization. I’ve been doing everything.” While the center has been helpful in assisting her with the application process, McNair says that so far she has not been successful. Although McNair currently receives unemployment benefits, she said it is getting harder to obtain a check from the local government. Regulations are becoming more strict, she explained, because individuals will file for unemployment even after they find jobs. If she doesn’t find work soon, McNair said she is planning to leave Laurinburg. “You need to go all the way to a different city or different state to get more jobs. They’re moving them across seas and stuff. I think it’s going to take a long time for everything to get better,” she said. “If I don’t find work here, I’m planning on moving to a different state. A lot of people are doing it.” For McNair, the solution to the unemployment problem lies in education, which has compelled her to cast her ballot for Obama. Maria, a 35-year-old Scotland County native who did not wish to provide her
“WE NEED A BUSINESSMAN TO RUN THIS COUNTRY.”
last name, said it took her three years to find employment in Laurinburg—a job referred to her by a friend. The job industry isn’t improving, she said, because the local government doesn’t keep its promises. Officials have announced the implementation of new businesses and buildings, but residents are still waiting for results. “[The unemployment situation] is still the same because [officials] said that they were going to have new places—which would mean new jobs—but they never made a building,” she said. “They put on the news years ago that we would have a new Target, a new Sears. We’re still waiting. If you look around, a lot of our buildings are empty.”
- tanya edge
“obama gets it...you can’t get nothing done in four years.”
Ballot impact Many small business owners, like Ira and Tanya Edge, cite county tax policy as a barrier to economic development in the Laurinburg and Scotland County area. Scotland County has one of the highest commercial property taxes in the state. Although property values are low—making it easier for businesses to expand into the area—some shy away from the tax burden. “While that may be the perception, that may not be the reality,” Parker refutes. “We do have a fairly high tax rate but our valuations are on the lower side of the scale. Costs to businesses tend to be less.” The sentiment among county residents is that there just need to be more jobs available. Icard’s office is working to spark job growth from within the county by focusing on small business entrepreneurship while recruiting outside industry. In addition to Service Thread, a major vehicle parts manufacturer is bringing 66 jobs and investing more than $57 million in Laurinburg in the next three years. “You’ll see a lot of companies make decisions based on what will happen in the election cycle,” Icard adds. The local jobs problem provokes national dissatisfaction among some residents who hope the outcome of the upcoming presidential election will correct the nation’s economy and create jobs. Romney’s visit to Asheville in early October almost exclusively focused on the issue. Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory visited Scotland County Sept. 4 to visit a manufacturing plant and promote a stronger link between the employed and the jobless. Obama has done the same in North Carolina, highlighting his plan for job creation during visits and at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in September. Fortunately for the president, Scotland County is historically Democratic, with
- justin rooms 57 percent of votes cast for Obama in 2008 and 77 percent of voters completing a Democratic straight party ticket in the 2010 midterm elections. But the Edges simply can’t take four more years of the same economy. “We need a business man to run this country, that’s what we need.” Tanya said. “Do your research, nine times out of 10 people who are millionaires are self-made.” Ira’s cousin, Trey Edge, adamantly notes that he does not “like either one of them,” but feels that Romney can be relied upon to save, not spend, tax dollars while tightening up government assistance programs. “[Democrats] can promise you everything in the world, but they’re not going to come through for that,” Trey said. “What eats away at me the most is everybody sitting around here, with me working as hard as I have to work. There are people just sitting around in the projects, and for people that need [government assistance] like the elderly and disabled, I understand and that’s fine, but then you got 10 people sitting around in one area, and only two out of 10 work, and the other eight live better than the ones that works.” Some Scotland County residents, like workers Justin Rooms and Terry Farris, think Obama’s national policies will provoke local job growth. “We’ve got the highest taxes in the state… Obama gets it,” Rooms said. “He’s only been in office four years—you can’t get nothing done in four years. You got to give the man a chance.” Farris adds: “[Obama’s] talking to other countries and stuff, working out deals and stuff. And the man he’s running against, he don’t know nothing.” Many residents, like Blackman, acknowledge that a president cannot fix what is wrong in Scotland County. Even though North Carolina is widely considered to be a swing state—where individual votes matter more—many residents simply do not see the point in casting a ballot. “I don’t vote. I’ve never voted before, I never do. They say that, what’s his name? Romney? They say he’s not the right man for the job. They say Obama is. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me,” Blackman said. n TOWERVIEW | 17
Winning, with W story and photos by
SAMANTHA LACHMAN
“I have that motorcycle,” North Carolina state Senate candidate Deb Butler remarks, as
she stands outside the door of another potential voter in sunny Carolina Beach. Butler, who hails from Wilmington, is canvassing just blocks from the ocean, winding through streets of pastel-colored stilt houses. She returns to her car to show me her transvaginal ultrasound wand, which she keeps in the backseat. The device is featured in her latest television ad as an example of what’s at stake for women in North Carolina in this election cycle. She calls the 10-inchlong white device her opponent’s “contribution to women’s health—a medically unnecessary, invasive procedure that is now required by state law.” The mandatory ultrasound bill Butler is referring to originated in the North Carolina General Assembly, whose two chambers were taken over by Republicans in 2010— for the first time in more than one hundred years AN UPHILL BATTLE Raleigh-based Lillian’s List aims to take back the General Assembly this Nov. 6 by electing more pro-choice Democratic women to the body. The organization has endorsed more candidates than ever before and surpassed previous fundraising numbers; only Tuesday will tell whether these efforts yield greater political representation of women in North Carolina. The group was founded in 1997 by two Chapel Hill women, Jan Allen and Laura Edwards. The “Lillian” refers to Lillian Exum Clement, North Carolina’s first woman legislator who
18 | TOWERVIEW
was elected just prior to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This election cycle, Lillian’s List has had to respond to the fact that the partisan-controlled redistricting process has made it tougher for many of their endorsed candidates. “A lot of our pro-choice Democratic women were deliberately redistricted into districts they couldn’t win or they were placed in districts with fellow Democrats. They were doublebunked, so it was really hard to navigate the beginning of the election—we had to reevaluate what our target districts were,” says Leah Josephson, a communications and development associate for the organization. Lillian’s List differs from its national partner, EMILY’s List (which is was where I interned this past summer) in that it focuses on state races, including those for the North Carolina House, Senate and Council of State. Unlike EMILY’s List, which checks the pro-choice credentials of potential endorsees with a short choice questionnaire, Lillian’s List has their prospective candidates also interview before a candidate committee. “It’s a pretty significant and involved vetting process…we try to be strategic about which candidates we’re supporting,” noted Josephson. But as a state-based organization with a full-time staff of only five, Lillian’s List also faces severe financial challenges. If a candidate receives the endorsement of Lillian’s List, they then have access to the group’s base of more than 1,000 members. The organization endorsed 26 candidates this election cycle and has raised $80,000 so far in 2012. With limited resources, the committee can only afford to contribute $4,000 to an individual
Women
during the primary and another $4,000 during the general election, while individual donors can similarly only give $4,000 during the primary and another $4,000 during the general election to Lillian’s List. To put this in perspective, EMILY’s List members have donated more than $2 million to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s reelection race against the infamous Missouri Rep. Todd Akin, who received national fame from his recent delineation of “legitimate rape.” Taking on the Tea Party Butler is one of that select group of Lillian’s List candidates, which she says has been helpful, especially financially. “They’ve given the maximum amount possible. They’ve encouraged their membership to help out, they have sponsored events, and they offered training opportunities and a seasoned ear.” These additional resources could have a substantive impact in a district like Butler’s. New Hanover County is considered a bellwether for the nation because voters are one-third Democratic, one-third Republican and one-third undecided, Butler says. Butler’s race has attracted the attention of outside organizations including the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. If elected, Butler would be the only LGBT member of the state Senate. Her opponent, state Sen. Thom Goolsby, a “self-avowed Tea Partyer,” was a supporter of Amendment One, which passed by only 152 votes in New Hanover County. One of the questions for voters in North Carolina is whether Republican lawmakers exceeded their mandate by proposing Amendment One, attempting to de-fund Planned Parenthood and making other changes to health-related legislation. Butler,
who thinks women voters will be critical to making Goolsby a one-term incumbent, is taking a gamble in emphasizing “how regressive this legislature really is by putting artificial barriers in place between a woman and her reproductive choices.” As always, raising money is critical to winning her district. “Asking for their dollars is hard. As a lawyer I’m used to being direct and as a businesswoman I’m used to selling a product, but in politics you’re selling yourself.” Back at Lillian’s List, communications and development associate Leah Josephson echoed Butler’s concerns: “I think there’s sometimes a disconnect as to what the money means for a campaign—the tried and true way to win votes is to send mail to people in your district who might vote for you. If you don’t have the money to do that you can knock on doors all day long but you can’t reach as many people. So really when it comes down to it, it’s about whether you have the resources.” Butler has knocked on more than 6,000 doors in her district and aims to reach 9,000 by Election Day, but will these grassroots efforts be enough? “Girls on Fire” On one end of an indoor pool on an expansive estate in Winston-Salem sits dozens of women who donate money for Lillian’s List-endorsed candidates like Butler. On the other end sits the realization of their goal: three women currently in office who were elected with the support of groups like Lillian’s List and EMILY’s List to defend reproductive freedom and advance progressive legislation. This Lillian’s List fundraiser almost looks like any other political event: asparagus tips and artichoke dip in the dining TOWERVIEW | 19
“Any woman who votes Republican this year is like the turkey showing up on Thanksgiving and saying ‘I’m here, how can I help?’”
room, checks flowing as plenOnce elected, some female tifully as the wine and candilegislators find working in the dates schmoozing with pomale-dominated N.C. General tential donors by the lemon Assembly challenging. Garrou, squares. But the vast majority who is not running for re-elecof the attendees are women in tion after having been redistheir 40’s through 70’s (and tricted to a region she probably older) and the entertainment - Secretary of State Elaine Marshall couldn’t win, voiced her conis a panel discussion with U.S. cern for the general apathy in Sen. Kay Hagan, N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and the state legislature. “It was astounding to me how vehemently state Sen. Linda Garrou. [Republican lawmakers] felt about these issues. We debated a “We’re not this stiff political organization—we try to be fun,” number of things over and over and over again. It was almost enthuses one Lillian’s List staffer. like there’s total disregard for women…. Sometimes we would The discussion with the panelists seems to prove her point. bring up issues affecting children, schools and women, and we “I’ve been in the U.S. Senate now for not quite four years, and would get these blank looks from across the table. We felt like I quickly found out that there are two kinds of senators. When saying, ‘Hello, these things are important, too.’” you’re getting ready to do a floor speech or a press conference, Hagan concluded the panel’s discussion by linking the state’s there are those senators that are constantly concerned about situation regarding women and politics to a national conversatheir hair or their makeup…and then there are the women,” be- tion about social issues. gins Hagan, to the delight of the audience. “You look at what the Republican Party has been talking The panel’s members are in consensus that more women about these past two years and every woman needs to get inneed to run for office despite the resistance candidates may face volved. Whether it’s about choice, contraception, the Blunt from party leaders, committee chairs and fellow legislators. Amendment, education, Equal Pay, the Violence Against WomMarshall notes that female candidates encounter opposition en Act... The Lily Ledbetter bill, which I cosponsored, was the even from within their own party. “Party bosses do a subtle un- first bill the president put forward and signed—that wouldn’t dermining of your confidence, by saying things like ‘Do you re- have happened if John McCain had won. Look at that kind of ally want to put up with all of that?’” item and how we’ve made change. “ All agreed that women have to be recruited: Marshall urged Knowing that they were preaching to the choir, the women women to “Quit being so damn responsible…you’re not the on the panel threw in a few crowd-pleasing partisan swipes. most indispensible person on the face of this Earth, you can “Any woman who votes Republican this year is like the turmove on and think about greater public service.” key showing up on Thanksgiving and saying ‘I’m here, how According to a recent study from the Institute for Women’s could I help?’” Marshall joked. Laughter echoed across the Policy Research, North Carolina has five women in the Senate, pool-house. 33 women in the House and yet is ranked 29th in the country for its proportion of women in a state legislature. Gov. Bev Perdue, Marshall-ing the Women as a Democrat and woman, is a rare breed: If Maggie Hassan Concerns about gender balance in politics are by no means doesn’t win her race in New Hampshire, there will be no Dem- new for some legislators. Marshall, who in 1997 became the first ocratic women governors in the country as of this November, as woman elected to a statewide office in North Carolina, ran after Perdue is stepping down. having been a teacher, a lawyer and a small business owner. 20 | TOWERVIEW
To Marshall, who is now seeking a fifth term, the Republican wave in 2010 “was an election which elected people who claimed to be for small government, but they want government in your bedroom and in your doctor’s office—it is such hypocrisy.” During her time as a lawyer before she ran for office, when she walked the halls of the General Assembly advocating for changes to the gender discrimination in legal statutes, Marshall found that male legislators “didn’t understand, didn’t identify and weren’t willing to waste their political capital on these kinds of issues. So I decided rather than trying to influence a vote, I would be a vote!” At an informational event and fundraiser for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot at the Women’s Club in Raleigh, staffers begin to shepherd their chargers into the sitting room in which Marshall is explaining her political history, which includes two runs for Senate. In 2002, she lost the Democratic primary to Erskine Bowles, and in 2010, she won her primary against Cal Cunningham but couldn’t unseat Sen. Richard Burr. In the general election, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which raises money for Senate candidates, “turned out ultimately to be unhelpful, it was very disappointing.” “For those who supported Elaine, the storyline is that men are allowed to skip to the front of the line over women who have a career of public service. For Cal supporters, the storyline is that there shouldn’t be a ‘line’ at all, especially if we want to improve youth engagement in politics,” College Democrats of North Carolina President Elena Botella, Trinity’13 explained in an e-mail. The “Year of the Woman,” Redux? In Raleigh, Josephson is optimistic about their candidates’
chances this November: “We’ve done more than ever before to support women candidates this year…We’re really involved with their campaigns, we’re on the phone with them all the time, it’s a constant and really important relationship.” The hope is that this group will have meaningful impact long after Election Day. If elected, these women should feasibly be able to easily work together in the General Assembly, after having attended the same fundraising and communications trainings and had similar experiences on the stump. “When you have this group of women who’ve gone through this process together, they get into the General Assembly and are immediately effective legislators because they have allies, a group of people to help them make policy change happen. It’s actually a really empowering sisterhood that we’ve been able to create in the General Assembly that wasn’t necessarily there before Lillian’s List,” said Josephson. Back in Carolina Beach, Butler is encountering mostly unoccupied homes by the waterfront—it seems most potential voters are out enjoying one of autumn’s last sunny days. Finally, outside of one stilt house, a family in bathing suits with beach towels and surfboards approaches Butler and her canvassing partner. “Are you pretending not to live here?,” she asks, good-naturedly. But it turns out that her assumption is wrong—they’re not from the area and with that, Butler calls it a day. After being asked what she thought of her chances of winning her race, Butler answers: “My approach was to relish the journey as much as the end. Every time I start to have a little anxiety attack, I remind myself that it’s about the journey.” n
TOWERVIEW | 21
“You ARE libertarian. Live free,” reads the wall behind Gary Johnson’s podium in Reynold’s Theater. Truthfully, under your cloak of political indifference, past the narrow political constructs of left and right, you are a Libertarian, the static letters on the white screen seem to be saying. Despite his assertiveness, Johnson and his fellow Libertarians running for office have been shut out of the mainstream political establishment and forced to work with more modest resources, leaving them almost no hope of being elected next month. Our electoral system is frustratingly good at upholding a self-enforcing two-party political system, yet the irrational optimism of the Libertarian agenda has always provoked a kind of
G N I BE RTARIAN E B LI G N E F Y L I M E y b y r
sto
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photos
EH I M A SH N I V E K y b
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awestruck pity in the politically apathetic. Johnson, this year’s Libertarian presidential nominee, does not seem to be fazed by the amount of persuading he has left. To the contrary, his campaign and the smaller campaigns of his peers in North Carolina certainly aren’t lacking in cheery, idealistic denial. “My message is a message that needs to be heard and it needs to be pursued,” Johnson maintained in a June NPR interview. All political candidates espouse this kind of political altruism to at least some degree, but Johnson’s is particularly believable because he appears so unlikely to reap any electoral reward. Perhaps the counterfactual idealism of Libertarians is what makes them particularly endearing to college students. Johnson certainly enjoyed a positive Blue Devil reception while making a 40-college stop with his vice presidential candidate, Jim Gray. The September talk could more accurately have been described as a restrained pep-rally. The more enthusiastic attendees emphatically pumped “Gary Johnson 2012” posters at the end of his every sentence, as if to punctuate his speech. What Johnson had to say to his posterpumpers was actually quite awful— but the audience ate it up anyway. “You guys are all getting screwed,”
he intoned. Between taxes, health care and pension college students are almost certainly going to be crushed by school, mortgage and national debt in years to come. Unless we vote for him, of course. In many ways, the growing popularity of the Libertarian party, which is the largest and fastest growing third party, has much to do with the perceived ineptness of the current administration. Libertarianism is not a new political ideology, however. For some, a vote for the Libertarian party is a vote in opposition rather than a vote in confidence. “People are definitely more receptive. They’re fed up,” acknowledged Richard Evey, a Libertarian candidate for one of two North Carolina Senate seats open for election this year. People, he enthusiastically said, have been actually voluntarily coming up to him and asking for more information—a trend that Evey hasn’t enjoyed in his previous campaigns for the same seat. Becoming Visible When I called Libertarian N.C. gubernatorial candidate Barbara Howe for an interview, she was on her way back from completing a 5K in the tiny county of Jones, having sworn to run the equivalent of three miles in every state county before the election. These types of theatrics are not uncommon for Libertarian candidates—Howe recounted how four years earlier, her Libertarian predecessor, Michael Munger, dove into the ocean with pneumonia in November for the sake of media atten-
tion. “This is the sort of thing that really the only way a Libertarian, or really any third party candidate, can get any attention,” Munger solemnly declared before walking calmly into the waves. Indeed, the set political establishment has effectively ignored the Libertarian party. “The hardest thing is sometimes they don’t take you seriously,” Howe breathlessly informed me after pulling over in heavy traffic while juggling our interview. Republicans and Democrats haven’t seemed to pretend to include their Libertarian peers in the electoral process. On campus, Duke Libertarian activities are invisible, squeezed out by the beefedup and vocal ranks of Duke Democrats and Duke College Republicans. One gets the distinct sense that both left and right are happy ignoring their misfit Libertarian cousins. Sophomore David Winegar, president of Duke Democrats, only gave me the following statement after hemming and hawing on his stance about this year’s Libertarian candidates: “We are fully behind Barack Obama and his policies.” Junior Taylor Imperiale, chair of Duke College Republicans, was more understanding but equally dismissive. “A 2 or 3 percent vote total isn’t going to change how the world views libertarianism... They just serve to make it more difficult for one of the [major] candidates to win. Realize that in some sense a vote for Johnson is a wasted vote,” Imperiale said. Voters who supported Johnson’s platform would find most of their expectations met by Mitt Romney anyways, he added. Libertarians have vocally disagreed. “Libertarianism is all about small government, et cetera, so everyone can live the way they choose,” Howe commented. But this emphasis on a small government has created a relatively small following for Howe’s party. In an attempt to inTOWERVIEW | 23
crease their base of support, however, Libertarians have targeted younger generations with their message. In addition to filing an anti-trust case in federal court for being excluded from the national debates, Johnson has made a special effort to reach out to students, as is evident from his recent college tour. “Given our limited resources, we certainly have focused much more on young people than any other demographic,” noted junior Michael Elgart, co-president of Duke Libertarians. On a similar note, Duke political science professor Michael Gillespie commented that college students are a natural target audience for the Libertarian Party. “Where else are they going to find the people interested in them?” Gillespie does recognize some of the merits of the Libertarian platform, however. “The more money government makes available, the more people try to capture some of those rents,” he said, adding that people can use that money to pad their own pockets, engendering corruption and inefficiency. And the premise of a self-ordering system of free choice is appealing. Johnson’s platform—fiscal conservatism and absolute protection of civil liberties—attracts potential voters 24 | TOWERVIEW
who value, for example, both deficit reduction and the affirmation of gay marriage. “I’m stronger than Obama when it comes to civil liberties, and I’m going to make the claim that I’m stronger than Romney when it comes to dollars and cents,” Johnson boasted in the interview, a claim which will either win voters by capturing the best of both worlds or woo neither side with its odd mixture of social liberalism and conservative economics. That combination of ideologies may be perfectly suited toward college students, however. Elgart told me his own reasons for choosing his party: “Libertarianism is very popular amongst young people, relatively speaking. There are much fewer social conservatives in the younger generation than older voters, and many [young people] have come to realize that small government and social conservatism don’t actually overlap as much as Republicans believe.” For idealistic young voters who long despaired of finding the perfect political fit and could not stomach Democratic economic liberalism and Republican social conservatism, Libertarianism is a compelling third option. On-campus mobilization for Libertarian candidates has been lackluster, however. Elgart notes the biggest challenge is publicity. “Once people hear about us, they are very excited to get involved,” he said.
off from much of the lifeblood of political campaigns: money. Unlike his Democratic and Republican opponents, Johnson’s financial war chest runs in the thousands of dollars rather than in the millions. He successfully qualified for matching funds from the Federal Election Commission back in May, providing at least $100,000 of funding to Johnson’s campaign. This would have been peanuts to the presidential frontrunners. President Barack Obama, for example, raised $126 million in September. Cash flow shortage is certainly not a new problem for third party candidates. Munger, a political science professor at Duke, noted that he had less than $30,000 to spend on his campaign, as compared to the eventual victor, Beverly Perdue, who spent $17 million in total. Evey, the Senatorial candidate, admitted his campaign is largely a self-funded “one-man operation,” while his opponent has spent nearly $100,000 to contest for the seat. “Here’s the problem with running as a Libertarian,” explained Evey. “Money.” Exacerbating their financial paucity is the way our political institutions have been set up to prevent third-party candidacies. All third-party woes effectively stem from the way American electoral rules have been structured. To weed out any old group from putting forth a candidate, many states have stringent requirements for even appearing on the ballot. North Carolina’s electoral laws are notoriously draconian; in order to appear on the ballot, third parties must have received at least 2 percent of
a m Oba an h t nger o tr “I’m s vil i c o t s e m o when it c and i’m , s libertie y ne m o r an th nger o tr s o t s e m o c when it .” s ent c d dollars an - GARY JOHNSON
Overcoming Obstacles Although Libertarians’ rebel status affords them brownie points with disaffected voters, it also cuts them
“HOW DO YOU GET INTO THE DEBATE IF YOUR N AME IS NOT EVEN AN OPT ION IN THE POLL?”
the vote in the previous election. Prior to Munger’s gubernatorial campaign that garnered 2.7 percent of votes, Libertarians had spent $2 million to get on the ballot eight separate times—“pouring resources down the rathole,” as Munger more colorfully described. This left almost nothing to fund its candidates once achieving hard-won ballot access. Then there is the problem of receiving national coverage and attention. Johnson has experienced routine exclusion from both Republican and Democratic debates. “They said that I had to be at 2 percent in A, B, and C polls. I wasn’t in A, B, and C polls. So how do you get into the debate if your name is not even an option in the poll?” Johnson half-complained, with laugh tinged with frustration, and understandably so. Johnson eventually filed a lawsuit, claiming his exclusion from the presidential debates was a violation of anti-trust regulation.
Johnson is currently polling at 5 to 6 percent, though these numbers will probably be higher than the actual voter tally, as many prospective voters who participate in polls decline to “waste” a vote on a third-party candidate on the day of the election. More pragmatic Libertarians, however, urge a “wasted” third-party vote for a candidate one actually supports rather than throwing away a vote on a candidate who will anyway. In addition to the larger visibility and financial issues facing Libertarian candidates, the country’s winner-takeall political system quickly snuffs out smaller, third-party candidates. This has not stopped the dogged North Carolinian Libertarian resistance from running for office, however. In addition to Howe’s campaign for governor, 13 other intrepid Libertarians are running for state positions. North Carolina is not
known to be a particularly encouraging environment for Libertarians, who tend to be strongest in the western part of the country, especially among more rural areas such as Montana, California and Wyoming. But as far as underdogs go, Libertarians are beating their competition. Of all the third party presidential candidates, Johnson is on the ballot in the most states—47 states and the District of Columbia. With 17,000 registered Libertarians in North Carolina, the party is the largest third party in the state—though Democrats and Republicans each have more than 2 million registered voters, to keep things in perspective. Even Johnson, the most wellknown face of the Libertarian pack, faces only 35 percent name recognition among voters. Still, Libertarians remain upbeat. Johnson rallies like the triathlon athlete that he is can. “A wasted vote would be voting for someone you don’t believe in,” he maintained. A bigger problem Johnson faces may be convincing voters to cast a ballot for a candidate they might not even recognize. n
TOWERVIEW | 25
A LOOK INTO THE ISSUES
foreign policy • social policy • education • job creation • national security • defense spending • health reform • foreign policy • Afghanistan • Iraq •health reform • gay marriage • Arab Spring • foreign policy • social policy • education • job creation • national security • defense spending • health reform • Iraq • foreign policy • education • health reform • gay marriage • Arab Spring • foreign policy • social policy • education • job creation • national security • defense spending • health reform • foreign policy
PHOTOS SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
N.C. Education
by Chris Cusack
As North Carolina struggles to choose between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in this year’s presidential election, the state is much more certain about its choice for governor. Republican Pat McCrory, the former mayor of Charlotte, leads in the polls by more than 10 points over Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton, no surprise considering incumbent Bev Perdue, also a Democrat, chose to not seek re-election amidst plummeting approval ratings. Although the 2012 gubernatorial campaign has been dominated by the economic recovery and job creation, the race also comes during an inauspicious time for the North Carolina education system. The Republican-controlled State Assembly cut education by $1.7 billion between 20112013, and North Carolina as a state ranks in the bottom 10 nationwide in per pupil spending, according to a National Education Association report. Dalton has tried to capitalize on those numbers with his education plan called “Great Jobs Grow from Great Schools.” As a former co-chair of the state Senate Education Committee, much of his political career has been aimed at educational reform, and the gubernatorial race is no exception. His plan is focused on implementing and expanding many of the programs he proposed as lieutenant governor, which would require a reversal of the recent funding cuts. “The Republican General Assembly needlessly cut financial aid for students when they were pursuing a cuts-only approach to try to close the budget deficit, and that has really harmed North Carolina’s ability to compete in the 21st century economy,” said Firoz Jameel, a Duke senior and North Carolina native who is taking a semester off to work for Dalton’s campaign.
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“Most distressingly, actually, is it has hurt the ability for a lot of students to afford college.” Earlier this spring, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors approved a tuition increase of 8.8 percent, on average, across the system in 2012-2013, and another 4.2 percent bump the following year. UNC-Chapel Hill featured the highest percent tuition increase, jumping up 9.9% for in-state students to $7,500. North Carolina State University’s 2012-2013 tuition of $7,644 remains the highest in the system, a 9.8 percent increase from the previous year. But with North Carolina facing a budget deficit of $2 billion in the 2013 fiscal year—11.5 percent of the overall budget—the state is facing increasingly tough choices about public spending. McCrory’s education plan aims to increase the efficiency of the programs that already exist, hoping to better align them with the realities of the modern economy, with the goal being that no student “move back in with his or her parents” after completing a degree. “McCrory’s education program is much more realistic and forward-looking,” said Jay Schalin, director of state policy analysis at the John William Pope Center for Education Policy, a conservative think tank based in North Carolina. “He understands that there’s a problem in K-12 education that is causing so many college students, especially at the community college level, to need remedial work…. He’s going to focus on that.” Part of McCrory’s plan involves the addition of a wide range of performance-based initiatives for educators and students, highlighted by a push to add class grade distributions to a student’s transcript. With the average class grade listed next to a student’s individual performance, schools and employers can better evaluate the rigors of specific aca-
Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton
Pat McCrory
demic programs. Dalton’s plan, in contrast, calls for a repeal of the recent education spending cuts and a plan to reward efficiency, rather than punish underperformance. He also plans to contin“The Republican ue the programs he presented General Assemunder the Innovative Educably needlessly cut tion Initiative Act, designed to financial aid for give high school students betstudents when they ter vocational skills and early were pursuing a college credits. The addition of so many educational procuts-only approach grams, though, raises the need to try to close the for more money in an already budget.” cash-strapped system. In his -senior Firoz Jameel most recent plan, Dalton outlines a three-pronged method of raising the money through taxation: repealing tax cuts on the most wealthy North Carolinians—business owners who are worth more than $5 billion, increased taxation on Internet purchases from international distributors like Amazon and the increased tax revenue from a recovering state economy. While the state is not headed toward a recession, though, it is projected for economic growth of just two percent over the next two years, according to a Charlotte Observer report in June. “Dalton’s program seems to be a love-song to the educational establishment, to the public school teachers,” Schalin said. “[It] is looking to the past when it seemed we had unlimited resources to throw money at new programs.” Despite the wide separation between the two proposed policies, though, private universities like Duke will feel little impact from the election. Local students, however, may be affected by two proposed policies under Dalton’s plan. The lieutenant governor supports the expansion of a 529 college savings account program—which currently offers an income tax deduction of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for joint filers in middle and low-income families—to include each child in a family, instead of the family unit as a whole. This would incentivize families with multiple children to save for college. Also, Dalton’s economic plan offers tax credits to companies for hiring new college graduates and the long-term unemployed. Still, though, Schalin says any student—especially one at Duke—shouldn’t make a deci“McCrory’s educasion this November based on tion program is education policy alone. much more “I would not ever vote according to that. That kind of realistic and very narrow self-interest is a forward-looking.” bad way to vote.” n -Jay Schalin
Foreign Policy Editors’ Note: The following two pieces are excerpts from a foreign policy debate hosted by Prof. Peter Feaver’s “Foreign Policy of the 2012 Elections” class, held on Oct. 9, 2012.
Obama’ s Position: Today’s world presents a unique blend of challenges
like we have never seen before. The Arab world has been swept by democratic movements that inspire new possibilities for fair and representative governments. At the same time, these movements present new challenges. We are dealing with growing powers in Asia, a struggling economy in Europe, and an impending global environmental crisis. In dealing with these new and complex problems, President Barack Obama’s policies have reminded the world that the United States will always have an unparalleled role in global affairs and exemplified what true American leadership is. American leadership is special. It comes from our values and our principles. From our respect for national sovereignty and our commitment to upholding freedom. From our economic prowess and open borders. And, yes, from our military. But it is the combination of all these that forms true American leadership. At times, that meant working with other countries like Russia and China to enact crippling sanctions on Iran. At other times, it meant taking unilateral steps to ensure America’s national security, such as going into Pakistan and taking out America’s most wanted terrorist. Sometimes this leadership has been proven behind the scenes, such as in Libya, where we worked multilaterally to ensure widespread support against the Qaddafi regime. Mitt Romney looks upon these actions as demonstrating weakness and “apologizing for America,” but this could not be further from the truth. In contrast to Obama’s strategy of engagement, Romney has been unable to move past the simplistic and rigid mentality of friend states versus enemy states. His brash policies focus only on America’s military might. Romney’s foreign policy agenda is marked with inconsistencies. He has frequently changed his stance on multiple issues, making it difficult to determine his true policy objectives. Why has he flip-flopped so frequently? Possibly because the Romney-Ryan ticket has less military experience than any presidential ticket in decades. Possibly because he attempts to please both old-guard conservatives focused on nation building and the neo-cons looking to show America’s military power. Maybe he just can’t make up his mind. Regardless, Romney has demonstrated his naivete on each foreign policy issue. He is not ready to take on the role of commander-in-chief. n article continued on next page >> TOWERVIEW | 27
Foreign Policy (cont.)
Romney’ s Position: Four years ago, President Barack
Obama promised this country a dramatic change—that as president, he’d offer bold solutions to confront America’s problems directly. He said that we needed a world without nuclear weapons, and that he’d use all elements of American power to achieve that goal. He wanted to raise public opinion of America in the Middle East and engage with not only our allies, but our enemies as well. But Obama’s promises on foreign policy were not fresh ideas, they were a testament to his naïveté. And four years later, we’re seeing the results of this president’s failed leadership. In Iran, Obama watched from the sidelines as the regime marched its way toward nuclear capability. Our safety has come at the expense of Obama’s ego—in believing that negotiations and his mere charisma could win over the Iranian leaders, he wasted precious time and put our allies in danger. Even as the pro-democracy “Green Revolution” emerged in 2009, Obama stayed silent to avoid tension with our enemies. In Afghanistan, Obama jeopardized our future security by making the surge a political decision rather than a military one. By ignoring the expertise of his advisors and announcing a timeline for withdrawal before the surge even began, he gave the exit date for all of our enemies to plan for. And just last month, our nation was attacked. In Benghazi, four Americans were murdered, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. In cities across the Middle East, our flags were burned and our embassies were threatened. Contrary to what Obama would like you to believe, these attacks were not isolated incidents. They’re the result of a much larger problem, and we’re slowly seeing the effects of four years of policies that alienate our allies and embolden our enemies. We’ve seen no coherent strategy 28 | TOWERVIEW
for addressing the Arab Spring, and public opinion of the US in the Middle East is worse than when Obama took office. And while this president’s policies have succeeded in making our enemies grow stronger, they’ve also strained our relationships with some of our closest allies. President Obama stated at the beginning of his term that he wanted “daylight” between the United States and Israel, and he has succeeded. In order to be strong, the United States must have strong ties with its closest allies. Our president does not understand that. We cannot apologize for America’s values or downplay the power of our resolve. If America does not lead, others will. We must work to shape the world around us, rather than let our plans be dictated by our enemies. Under Mitt Romney’s leadership, America will realize its true potential and its duty to steer the world toward freedom and prosperity. Romney will work swiftly to impose aggressive sanctions on Iran and be clear through our actions—not rhetoric—that their pursuit of nuclear weapons will not be tolerated. He will create new aid conditions to incentivize countries to promote democracy and protect human rights. He will consult with our commanders on the ground to ensure that our transition in Afghanistan is an effective and responsible one. When American security is at stake, the decisions made cannot be political calculations. Romney will renew ties with our closest allies and make sure they know where our priorities lie. And he will retake America’s place as a leader on the international stage. Obama’s strategy of leading from behind has failed, and we must take steps to show the world that America is as strong as ever. The 21st century can be an American century, but we cannot get there without strong leaders who recognize America’s full potential. Romney will bring the strategies and solutions to get our country back on track. n
Health Care
Preparing for an Uncertain Future
by Sonia Havele
I
n the days leading up to the U.S. presidential election, polls confirm that health care is the most pressing voter issue, trailing the economy and jobs. The focal point of the ongoing dialogue has been the stark divide between the two candidates’ visions for the future of health care in America. Among voters whose primary concern is health care, President Barack Obama is favored three to one over GOP challenger Mitt Romney, according to a recent study published by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. If re-elected, Obama will push forward with the Affordable Care Act, the crux of which is a mandate requiring the majority of uninsured Americans to purchase health insurance or face a federal tax penalty. Romney’s top priority for health care reform is cutting back medical costs—if he were to win, much of the law could be repealed and states would be granted more power regarding health care policy. For providers, the debate underscores the urgency for improvement in America’s health system. Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health affairs and president and CEO of the Duke University Health System, says three factors drive health care reform across the globe: access, quality and af-
GRAPHIC BY ADDISON CORRIHER
care, questions remain as to how current and future health care providers at Duke hospitals plan to face the anticipated challenges of 2014, when most major changes outlined in the ACA will take effect. One of the more pressing concerns among providers nationwide is the predicted spike in newly insured patients seeking hospital care, an issue Massachusetts continues to deal with, more than six years after then-Gov. Romney signed its similar, state-level health care reform into law. Stephanie Patterson, Trinity ’12 and first-year medical student at the School of Medicine, has noticed an emphasis on this issue in the medical school curriculum. “Right now, it’s about making sure there are enough physicians and health care providers to meet the [expected increase in] demand, while still delivering the same care,” she said. This is undoubtedly the central challenge for physicians, physician assistants, nurses and other health care providers across the country, especially considering the fordability. The goal of reform is to ensure, first, that steep shortage of physicians our nation already faces patients are not discriminated against or denied access; and talks of early retirement among older generations second, that the delivery of care, both inside of the hospi- of doctors growing frustrated with the changing system. tal and after patients have been discharged to outpatient According to the Association of American Medical Colunits, is of the best quality; and finally, that the cost of leges, the U.S. is currently short 15,230 primary care phytreatment is low. sicians—a number that could reach The question in the minds of 130,000 by 2025. providers is then: Which proposed “A lot of things are happenOne proposed solution has been health care plan will allow us to im- ing already. [We are] re-de- to increase the number of trained prove these areas? Regardless of who As of now, this is not a signing the way we care for physicians. wins Nov. 6, it is unlikely that Romrealistic option due to a medical ney will fully overturn the ACA—also patients that’s better than training bottleneck at the residency known as “Obamacare”—right away the way we do today that level. The number of medical school given the Democratic control of the accepted into residency results in better outcomes.” graduates U.S. Senate and the lengthy legislaprograms in the U.S. has remained -Dr. Victor Dzau, chancellor for health tive process necessary. Having already constant through the last 15 years, affairs and president and CEO of the complied with certain ACA requireand training expenses continue to Duke University Health System ments and implemented new patient grow. Moreover, Medicare, which care strategies, hospitals across the Obamacare cuts by $716 billion and nation are preparing for a new era in health care. which Romney plans to reform with vouchers, presently “A lot of things are happening already,” Dzau said, funds three-quarters of residency programs. John Lutdescribing efforts to reduce treatment costs and deliver trell, Trinity ’12 and first-year medical student at Wake more efficient care throughout the University health sys- Forest School of Medicine, has already overheard talks tem. “[We are] re-designing the way we care for patients of residency program restructuring. For instance, restricthat’s better than the way we do today that results in bet- tions on weekly work hours for residents could increase ter outcomes.” the length of overall residency—perhaps even by years. “What health care reform would like to do is increase Fewer Doctors, More Patients the number of doctors by increasing the number of mediDuke’s commitment to patient care has not gone un- cal schools, but the problem with that would be there noticed. In the 2012-2013 U.S. News and World Report aren’t enough residency positions—meaning facilities rankings, Duke University Medical Center—with its 8.2 and instructors—to incorporate the increasing number million square feet, 96 buildings and $2.4 billion in an- of graduates going from medical school into residency,” nual operating revenues—placed No. 8 among 148 of the Luttrell said. “This would make residency and therebest hospitals in the nation. Triangle residents have rated fore medical school even more competitive,” he added, the center as the highest-quality hospital in the Durham emphasizing the importance of collaboration in getting area for 11 years in a row—a legacy that also earned Duke through difficult first-year exams. a prestigious 2011-2012 consumer choice award from the Luttrell added that programs are typically unique and National Research Corporation. designed to accommodate a specific number of students. Given the hospital’s reputation for service and patient So, the only way to create more space would be to build
TOWERVIEW | 29
new programs and facilities—a process that would require time and additional funding.
A New, Collaborative Culture
An important strategy physicians have already begun implementing is prevention—emphasizing healthy eating and exercising habits to effectively minimize the number of patients requiring professional medical attention. The medical problems people face today are shifting, becoming less about infectious and even chronic disease and more about the health repercussions of obesity and the widespread cultural decline in physical activity. “That’s something that’s not purely a medical problem, but it has a lot of medical ramifications,” Patterson said. “Your doctor can’t be out there helping you go for a run or watching what you eat…. and there are just so many things that go into that: Is there a safe place to exercise? Do you have time? Is that something that’s part of your culture? I think [prevention] needs to be a society-wide change.” The notion of prevention—and the societal adjustment it demands— is, of course, a long-term goal. Because the likelihood of an increase in the number of U.S. physicians is low, this leaves two solutions: integration and collaboration. “I was interested in prevention and how to fit that in, but talking to other doctors, I’ve learned that that’s a great goal,” Patterson said. “But if there’s going to be a shortage in doctors, then maybe prevention should be the responsibility of another profession, for example, social workers.” Both Patterson and Luttrell believe that the present challenge is combining the skills and interests of a wide range of professionals to meet the demands of an increased patient population. And prevention—through joint efforts from social workers, health consultants, psychologists and dietitians, for example—will not be the only arena for collaborative change. “Our generation has had a lot of 30 | TOWERVIEW
experience with working with all different kinds of people, and I think it may have prepared us for working with different kinds of people in [the health care] group setting,” Luttrell said. As for Duke, Dzau also sees this increased medical collaboration as a positive—redefining health as a network of care that branches beyond a once-per-year interaction. He anticipates that change, particularly that proposed by Obamacare, will create “a much better professional environment for work and for [Duke’s] patients.” Patterson and Luttrell agree: Ultimately providing better care for more patients should appeal to physicians. “Most people in my class think that health care reform is uniformly a great thing,” Patterson said. “Because at the end of the day, we’re going to medical school because we want to improve people’s health care.” Still, the pressure to maintain and even improve treatment quality in spite of the expected increase in patient quantity can feel daunting to those working and training in the current system. “People will really try to stress quality care, but in reality, there’s not enough time to spend,” Luttrell said.
“Most people in my class think that health care reform is uniformly a great thing. Because at the end of the day, we’re going to medical school because we want to improve people’s health care.” -Stephanie Patterson, Trinity ’12 and firstyear medical student at the School of Medicine
Changing Relationships
A major worry among doctors and patients alike is that Obamacare could abate the doctor-patient relationship so valued by many Americans. In order to accommodate the large number of newly-insured patients, providers may also be forced
to deliver services through hospitals and large health care systems as opposed to smaller, private practices. Data released by the Medical Group Management Association showed that in 2005, two-thirds of U.S. medical practices were physician-owned; today, that number is well below 50 percent. “A lot of people who grew up with the dream of owning their own practice and choosing their own hours won’t be able to do so because of overhead costs,” Luttrell said. “So they may have to work in larger hospitals, where they won’t have that sort of longitudinal, meaningful relationship with their patients.” In order for a limited number of physicians to provide care for a greater number of patients, the time spent with each individual patient will have to be limited. Physicians— especially those working in private practice—are already cutting time with patients. They are scheduling more appointments each day to compensate for rising costs and shrinking insurance reimbursements, while relying more heavily on nurses and physician assistants to fill the void. Those who remain optimistic hope the new health care climate will not deter future physicians. Promisingly, Duke has not seen a decline in medical school applicants as of yet. “We have seen a rise in applications,” Dzau said. “That, to me, is reassuring.” Dzau, who personally endorses Obamacare, maintains that reform will force providers to ensure better care for patients, though it may not be as lucrative and autonomous for physicians as it has been in the past. He also stressed the importance of not looking back on “what was” but looking forward and recognizing “what should be.” “The most important thing is: Love what you do, know what you want to do and go after it with big passion—and everything will work out the way it’s supposed to,” he said. “If patient care is why [you want to become a doctor], then medicine is just as exciting today as it is tomorrow.” n
RHETORIC
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My sixteenth birthday present from my parents was a new car, the gravity of which is not lost on those well-studied in the classic Americana high school films. My first car was a damn nice one, even compared to my prep school peers: leather, navigation and (this was important to me at the time) a six-cylinder engine. Did I deserve such an expensive boon that would mainly enable me to have less-than-wholesome weekends? I had a good relationship with my parents—good student, involved and down to earth. Even as a good kid, the costbenefit analysis always bugged me—to the point that I had to ask why during my first college break. I am a first-generation American citizen. Both my father and mother had their childhood in India. Dad first came to the United States as a medical student, finishing his residency in the Upper East Side while living in Newark, New Jersey and working two shifts as a parking lot security guard. For him, it was the night shift that was the best; he could sit in the guard house with his books and be paid to study all night long. In fact, Dad only got his American citizenship in 2002, after establishing his own medical practice. He still has the beautifully tacky American flag tie he wore to his citizenship test. Mom came as a teenager, with my maternal grandparents, after political and social instabilities arose in our home state. My maternal grandfather was a prominent professor of economics in Gujarat before the move. American academia, particularly in the late 1970s, did not assign much worth to foreign degrees, even a Ph.D.—no teaching jobs were to be found and the family finances needed to remain intact. My grandfather took jobs at a mayonnaise factory on the assembly line and—as a strict, lifelong Brahmin vegetarian—the Fulton Street Fish Market in New York, cleaning and gutting a few pounds of sea life each day. While Dad finished his residency, Mom worked a post-graduate co-op with IBM as a computer engineer, with the slight problem that work was a two-hour commute north in Poughkeepsie. My parents lived in two different worlds in the course of their lifetimes,
Defining the Dream by
bridged by the content of their character that grew along the way. In Mom and Dad, I see a focus on the long-term, a genuine enjoyment of inconspicuous consumption. Undercurrents of prudence, the kind created only by success earned through struggle, kept my privileged life from creeping into pampered apathy. I asked my parents why they would allow months of night-shift salary to evaporate on an adolescent desire. Dad looked me in the eye and gave me the simplest of answers—he, too, had seen Fast Times and Ferris Bueller, albeit slightly later in life. “The car” had just as much magic for Dad as it does for any American teen. The dreams he could never have fulfilled earlier in his life did not fade from his mind with age. In the end, Dad and Mom lived a mostly difficult life in order to provide the mostly easy one for me. They earned and sacrificed in order to live the America Dream and, more importantly, so their children would never have to consider the change in status implied by the term. “We are your roots,” Dad said, “So that you can always look up rather than down.” With maturity came more awareness about the status of this term I use. When I heard that the American Dream was dead—or that it had always been a myth— I had a viscerally negative reaction. But the data speaks for itself: American children have the lowest chance among children of industrialized nations to rise from the lowest to the highest quintile of income. Just opposite to what Horatio Alger so deeply wished to be true, the United States has often been singled out for being one of the least socially-mobile industrialized societies in this era. More significantly, the data trends upwards— as we speak, America grows less equal and less mobile. When I hear that the American Dream is dead, I can understand. It is now easy
ADARSH DAVE
to empirically dismiss the American success story. But if we consider our presidential candidates, the parallels between their “American narratives” and our historic ideals are quite apparent. In President Obama, there is the child of immigrants: upper-middle class upbringing, private education on scholarship and the modest life of a graduate student or passionate public servant. The fact that the Obamas’ student loans were only settled with the President’s two best-selling books speaks volumes to Mr. President’s background. As to Governor Romney, it is often too easy, and incorrect, to paint his person in total contrast to Obama. Yes—in Governor Romney, we see a child raised in an affluent suburb of a major city, with private education paid for by a highly successful father. However, I only see Romney as the next generation to the American success story; it was Romney’s father who came from a Depression-era background to automobile executive cum-state governor. Romney was afforded analogous privileges as, say, Sasha or Malia would be, with his own impressive (business-related) accomplishments. I cannot say whether the Dream is a myth or not. When I hear that the American Dream is dead, I think of personas like those of our candidates, however few and far between they may be on the national stage. Even in these times of imperfect politics, aren’t the qualities of national leaders still a function of the ideals held by citizens? The appeal of Obama and Romney rests significantly on their personal paths to success, narratives that each candidate molds into an “American” success story. Each story can easily be idolized in an American context. Then, the “American Dream” survives to the American people as just that—the standard to which we compare, to which my parents compared, and the ideal to which we aspire, to which my parents aspired. TOWERVIEW TOWERVIEW 31 | 31