In today's Badger Herald, Managing Editor Bassey Etim had an interesting column about the politics of political appointments, specifically as they related the administration of state agencies. He cites a case of the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources, writing that, "Depoliticizing positions like DNR Secretary would certainly improve the efficiency of public office because the predominant factor in nominating citizens to these posts would be talent."

This is certainly a very rational and prudent idea. We obviously want our state agencies to administer their tasks in a manner that is both professional and conscious of the taxpayer's dollar. Ideally, that person would be given their post based on merit, yet as Mr. Etim notes, too often it goes to a big campaign contributor.

Now, please note that my words here are not an indictment of our current DNR Secretary. In Wisconsin, this post is one of those thankless jobs in which you inevitably upset a vocal minority no matter what you do. (If you open up new land to hunting, you piss off environmentalists; if you protect a river front, you piss off a power company.)

But I digress... Mr. Etim believes that if the seven member DNR Board were to make the appointment, the interests of the state would be better served. But there's a problem with this approach, too. Who of you (without the aid of Google) can name the seven members of the DNR Board? Who can name three of them? OK, how about just one?

I know I certainly can't, I'm a hunter who has lived in this state all my life. My point is this, at least with a political appointment, I have someone I can hold accountable in the next election. We don't elect the DNR Board, so we have no idea of knowing whose interests they represent, be they the people's or ATC's. We do, however, elect the Governor, and if his appointment really makes a mess of our beautiful natural resources we have the ability to throw him out of office.

The same is true, with a much greater sense of urgency, with the Secretary of State position. Mr. Etim references the infamous State of Florida and their 2000 election debacle. Then SoS Katherine Harris butchered that election before the first vote was even cast, but the people of Florida had the chance to toss her out of office, and after serving a couple meaningless years in the House of Representatives, she was exposed for the fraud that she is in her failed bid for the Senate last November.

In Wisconsin, we're not afforded such a luxury. Our elections are administered by the State Elections Board, an unelected group of eight who have no accountability to the people of our great state. Honestly, with Doug La Follette as our SoS, I'm not sure I would want him to certify the validity of a grocery coupon, let alone a statewide election. But at least we have the chance to vote him out of office if he fails to do his duties. Last year, when Ohio SoS Kenneth Blackwell ran for governor, the people of Ohio remembered his dismal record during the 2004 Presidential Election, and he was soundly defeated.

To borrow from Winston Churchill, It's the worst form of [appointment], except for all the rest.

Labels: Badger Herald, Bassey Etim, Katherine Harris

The wife of president Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Fernández Kirchner has won the presidential election in Argentina. She follows in the footsteps of Chilean president Michelle Bachelet who was elected last year. Could this also help to pave the way for a female president in the United States? While it is unlikely that most in the US will look to South America as an example for how things should be done in the US the possibility of two former first ladies becoming the presidents of their countries in one year is an interesting coincidence.

There are some similarities between the rise of these two women. In Argentina one of the main reasons cited for the election of Mrs. Kirchner is the popularity of her husband's policies. Mr. Kirchner's time in power has also seen a level of stability in the presidency that Argentina has been lacking since its return to democracy. If Mrs. Clinton is elected it will likely be in part due to the popularity of her husband and the nostalgia for the prosperity the country saw during his time as president.

With several other women currently holding positions of power throughout the world perhaps the rise of Mrs. Kirchner could be a part of a new generation of female world leaders. These advances are not limited to the Americas, in Europe the German Chancellor is Angela Merkel and in France Marie-Ségoléne Royal narrowly lost the presidential race to Nicolas Sarkozy. While the number of female world leaders is nowhere near where it would be in a world of total equality the current rise of these female leaders as well as the potential for a female leading the most powerful country in the world perhaps we are moving in the right direction.

For more information on the election of Cristina Fernández Kirchner see http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/americas/30argentina.html?ref=americas

For all the buzz about the youth going crazy for Obama, it's taken his largest Facebook group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" 9 months just to reach 382,000. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's not going to reach a million before the first primaries. The "Stop Hillary Clinton: One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary" group is still a ways away, just recently breaking the 500,000 member barrier.

But who are the predominately young Facebook members really rooting for? Rudy Giuliani? Mike Gravel? Apparently, they most passionate fans of none other than Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart's former protégé, who announced his presidential run (although only in his home state of South Carolina) 2 weeks ago. His Facebook group, "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T. Colbert" blew past 1,000,000 members on Friday morning. Their newest goal is to become the largest group on Facebook (in other words, more than 1.7 million members).

This is incredible to me. Since Facebook has about 39 million members, that means about 1 out of every 39 Facebook users are a member of that group. What's more, a recent Rasmussen poll found that in a 3 way match-up between Clinton, Giuliani and Colbert in the general election gives Colbert 12% of the vote total, and almost a third of those 18-29, MORE than Giuliani receives in this match-up.

What is going on here? It seems a substantial portion of the population, especially young people, is willing to vote for a satirist with no political experience. If that's not a startling indictment of our political system and how desperate people are for real, paradigm-shifting political change, I don't know what is.

UPDATE: I didn't notice Andrew Voss had a similar post earlier. Sorry for the repetition. I still think the new polling data that shows a large percentage of people (especially young people) is willing to vote for Colbert is worth mentioning.

UPDATE 2: Colbert also narrowly beats Dennis Kucinich when running as a Republican and Ron Paul when running as a Democrat.

On October 20, Congressman Bobby Jindal was elected Governor of Louisiana. He is the nation's first Indian-American Governor. He is a Republican.

Today's Washington Post has a wonderful piece on the conflicting emotions that Mr. Jindal's election have evoked. I, too, am a first-generation Indian-American. To be honest, at first, I was excited that an Indian-American can be elected in a state like Louisiana, where "less than two decades ago white supremacist David Duke won the votes of a majority of whites during his failed bid for Governor." And even as Chair of the College Democrats of America Asian/Pacific-Islander American (APIA) Caucus, I was thrilled that the APIA community - not the most politically active group - is making strides in electoral politics and government. But then I realized that I disagree wholeheartedly with many of Mr. Jindal's beliefs and policies and that I, as an Indian-American, a woman, and a someone with Democratic values, could not - nay, would not - revel in his election.

Mr. Jindal's election raises questions that are applicable to the 2008 Presidential election, specifically in the cases of Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson (who, if elected, would become the first African-American and Latino President, respectively). I won't leave Sen. Hillary Clinton out of this argument, either.

Should people vote for candidates just for one reason: if they're black, a woman, Latino, etc.? Why do they do that? Why shouldn't they?

Suresh Gupta, a lifelong Democrat, offered Mr. Jindal his full support and even organized fundraisers for him. Why? "It doesn't matter that Bobby is a Republican," said Gupta, 65. "He is our child, and we need to support this next generation so that they can become leaders of this country and make us proud." And by "our child," he means an Indian-American.

I disagree. Just because I identify with you on one or even two levels doesn't mean that our views and priorities align. In fact, you could be actively fighting my most dearly held beliefs: Jindal is a social conservative, advocating banning abortion and teaching intelligent design in schools. The mere fact that your skin is one color or another or that you have another X chromosome instead of a Y doesn't automatically signify that you understand the perspectives of that group. Maitri Venkat-Ramani (the daughter of immigrants) is quoted in the article, saying to her mother, "I keep telling her, just because [Jindal] looks like you doesn't mean he is you or that he is going to act like you.

Culturally, Jindal is distanced from many Indian-Americans: he changed his name from Piyush to Bobby and has converted from Hinduism to Christianity. The Washington Post calls him a potato, but I think Harold and Kumar would say "twinkie." Sen. Obama can sympathize in a way with Rep. Jindal's plight; he is constantly being criticized as not being "black enough." Yet both have garnered immense support from their respective communities (same goes for Gov. Richardson and Sen. Clinton) merely on that one fact.

I remember back in 2006, during the Dane County Board election (Ashok Kumar vs. David Lapidus) in the campus area, Mr. Kumar came to an UW-Madison Indian Student Association (ISA) meeting to ask for our endorsement. I recall that he spent little to no time talking about the issues but instead dwelled on the fact that he was an Indian-American. ISA endorsed Kumar in the race. Honestly, I don't think many of us even knew who he was or what he would advocate for once on the County Board. But we did know one thing, and that was what we could see.

Russell Wallace, who at the Oct. 24th College Democrats of Madison meeting said, (I may be paraphrasing a bit, as I don't remember the exact wordage) "All other things equal, I would vote for an African-American or a woman over someone else."

We like to think that we can live in a color-blind society. However, society is not like Stephen Colbert, who doesn't "see color." Actually, I prefer that society does at least recognize the differences that come with race and gender; constituencies as a whole do have different priorities (women naturally care more about women's rights, minority caucuses would care more about the DREAM Act, etc.). As Mr. Wallace and Mr. Gupta pointed out, many will and do vote for a candidate just because of that. But, never are "all other things equal." Do the voters see the inequalities? Or do they/we just choose to ignore them?

To borrow from the article, Are we just reinforcing the very color consciousness that we want the rest of American society to reject?

Labels: race, women