April 7, 2011
The Colgate Maroon-News
What’s Left
Commentary B-2
Being Right
By James Bourne
By Kyle Gavin
New Media Editor
Class of 2013
The Audacity to Win
Keep the Change
This Week’s Topic: 2012 Presidential Candidates It’s now as official as it was unsurprising: President Obama is running for a second term. As for Although the next presidential election is still 19 months away, it is already time to the other side of the aisle, Tim Pawlenty is the only major candidate in the race so far, although begin talking about the campaigns of the respective parties. many expect GOP mainstreamers Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour, Democrats are gleeful because many of the top GOP candidates are downplaying their Rick Santorum and Mitch Daniels to enter in the coming weeks. Interestingly, some Tea Party interest in seeking the nomination. favorites (Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Ron Paul), former ambassador Jon Huntsman and The Democratic Party views this lack of an apparent frontrunner as a weakness TV-star/business mogul Donald Trump have all expressed varying degrees of interest. Democrats for Republicans. and Republicans alike should be scared, uninterested and laughing (respectively) when considerNoted left wing columnist for The Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan, is on record as saying ing these “contenders.” Pundits are calling 2012 Obama’s election to lose, and some Washington that the current crop of GOP hopefuls is “pitiful.” insiders think that the difficulty of beating Obama might be keeping presidential hopefuls out of Many big wig Democrats believe that the election is already in the bag. This, however, this race. Why bother losing in 2012 when you can have an easier time in 2016? But with 19 long is a mistake. months between now and Election Day, pretending to predict the elections is a farce. Although the prospective GOP field may lack community organizers and inventors of Instead of going back and forth on whether Barack Obama will win, here is why he should. the internet, there is no shortage of strong candidates. There are two main (and perhaps equally unfair) criticisms of President Obama. The first essentially Unlike the democratic standard bearer last election cycle, the GOP hopefuls have says he has done too much and the second says he has done nothing at all. Regarding the first, it was actually accomplished something. clear that Obama had a big agenda from the moment he announced his candidacy in Springfield, Both Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels are reform-driven governors who have Illinois four years ago. If the country wasn’t ready to take him seriously, it money-sucking unions running shouldn’t have given him 365 electoral votes, or seven million more popular scared in their respective states. votes than any previous candidate. Far more aggravating though, is the secMitt Romney has executive exond criticism – that President Obama hasn’t done anything. Anyone with perience in both the private and half a brain or functioning eyes and ears should be able tell that President public sector. Obama has been busy. Here’s just a narrow sample of what he has done: in Former Speaker of the House the interest of getting the elephant out of the room, let’s tackle health care Newt Gingrich has a myriad of reform first. Health care reform was the unreachable rung on the progressive accomplishments under his belt, ladder for over a century. Despite simultaneous criticisms of both Obama’s such as balancing the federal supposed lack of leadership and backroom orchestration with key policybudget, cutting capital gains taxes makers, the ability to take on and achieve substantive policy changes bodes and kicking deadbeats off of the well for Obama. Colgate students will get to stay on their parents’ health government dole. care plans until they are 26, and those of us with pre-existing conditions can Many of these candidates may acquire/ change policies without risk. Obama also pushed financial reforms not be household names yet, but through that prevent predatory lending, proprietary trading and change the neither was Obama when he started way credit card companies do business. “Fine print” is now readable without campaigning in 2006. a magnifying glass, and credit card companies can’t prey on clueless college If being the favorite for the freshmen by signing them up for credit on the quad. Additionally, his expan- INEVITABLE DEFEAT?:Although many believe that President nomination of your party is so sion of the Pell Grants means more low-income families can send students to Obama’s reelection campaign will go virtually unchallenged, an important, then how come Hilary college. Obama has prioritized and signed into law bills that protect women’s emerging group of Republican candidates are catching people’s Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are not rights, increased minority access to capital and credit, appointed more openly eyes. How will Obama’s track record fight the competition? occupying the White House? Getty Images gay people to federal positions with equal benefits than any president and Obama may seem like a rock star appointed two of the four women ever to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. now, but in 2006 he was just some stiff who had two years of legislative experience under Additionally, the President has signed a massive nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, end- his belt. ed limits on the freedom of press surrounding the Iraq War, supported science programs like stem News-flash to Democrats: the last two men to occupy the White House from cell research and private spaceflight and took significant political risk by saving the American auto your party, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were not the perceived frontrunners for industry with (in hindsight) remarkable success. The list of President Obama’s accomplishments is the nomination. long and those presented here are by no means exhaustive. A plethora of candidates allows for competition, an idea that is foreign to liberals, so Obama has accomplished a lot, but even he acknowledges that he has much more to do. We that the best candidate may emerge. need to give him that chance. America needs reform and progressive change. Don’t be fooled by the Democrats are quick to point out the weaknesses in the presidential prospects of game of distraction politics. President Obama is not just a man of beer summits and golf. He has Republicans in 2012, but does anyone seriously think that the record of Barack Obama achieved substantial policy goals, and while not everyone will find everything exactly as they want- is a proud one to run on? ed, innovative solutions to our country’s problems are in demand. We cannot afford to conserve There is a reason why Democrats who were running in 2010, tried to distance themthe policies that have weakened us and threaten our greatness.The intellectually and substantively selves as much as possible from the White House, and that is because Obama’s record is bankrupt “Party of No” relies on falsifications, half-truths and rhetoric grounded in an imagined one that only Nancy Pelosi could love. reality. Conservatives look back for answers, even as far as the founding of the republic. But the Is 8.8 percent unemployment change we can believe in? Was a 2000 page health care founding fathers did not “work tirelessly until slavery was no more” and George Washington, after monstrosity that had to be passed so we could find out what was in it part of the audacity creating the first excise tax on whiskey, crushed a bothersome rebellion with federal forces – not of hope? exactly a “Don’t Tread on Me” response. Alas, their grasp on history, like modern day challenges Is racking up one trillion dollars plus deficits three years in a row supposed to get our confronting America, is tenuous at best. Going back to the way things were in America’s heyday stuttering economy back on track? doesn’t mean that we will suddenly bounce back. We need new solutions for new problems, and the If Democrats seriously think that this is the record of a winning ticket, then they will GOP is slow to offer any. Perhaps then, Republicans are late to enter the race because no candidate be in for a rude awakening on November 6, 2012, when the American people will expect wants to be on the sinking ship that the Republican 2012 ticket could become. a candidate to wow them with more than just words. Contact James Bourne at jbourne@colgate.edu. Contact Kyle Gavin at kgavin@colgate.edu.
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