by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo columnist
Walking across campus last week, I came upon an amusing series of chalkings. The Democrats had chalked for some rally they were doing that day. Some Republicans decided to add their own two cents - or two letters, like tacking "ir-" to the beginning of every "responsibility" they found.
My personal favorite was the cryptic, "minorities, the poor, students, or YOU." I'm not precisely sure who that message was targeting who would actually be walking across campus. Even the professors aren't exactly raking it in.
As I passed on to my next class, I couldn't help but think, gosh, how silly. There are actually people who felt so strongly about Republicans being good and Democrats being bad that they believed chalking silly addendums would be an effective use of their time. Which of course led me to wonder at people feeling strongly enough about Democrats to use their time organizing a rally for them.
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What are people doing fighting about worms they got from the same can?
With those infrequent but prominent cases of party-switching in recent years, towing a party-line seems all the more silly. But you don't need to watch the ludicrous political battles to know how homogenous our party system really is. It's readily apparent that any given politician won't necessarily follow the party platform. Take Bill Clinton, for example, the Democrat who supported free trade, crippling welfare, and immigration restrictions. Or Gary Johnson, supporting marijuana legalization. Voting for a candidate who happens to belong to a particular party has nothing to do with voting for the supposed ideals of that party.
And when a party does manage to maintain cohesion, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ideals. Let's look at the way the legislature actually works:
Within each branch of the legislature, there is a majority leader and minority leader, for the larger and lesser party, respectively. These leaders have some measure of control over things like office space and committee appointments. So if a legislator wants to get that bigger office or that committee chair position, he or she had better tow not the party's line, but the party leadership's line. So much for idealism.
But I don't want to paint a completely negative picture. Just as each party has its schmucks - many, many of them - each party can contain the occasional decent person. Take, for example, the New York State legislature, since I know it best.
For the Democrats, I'll nominate Ed Sullivan, chair of the Assembly Higher Education committee. He was one of the most fun people to lobby. He always had a story, or several. And the stories weren't just a tactic to side track us. His budget proposals always contained all our points - a tuition rollback, increased financial aid, increased faculty funding, etc. - and then some. Half the time, he was lobbying us to support his latest idea to help students.
For the Republicans, we've got Stafford, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. Back in the day, 1970-something, he authored and sponsored the bill that created the Tuition Assistance Program, which is presently one of the largest - if not the largest - state run need-based grant programs in the country. He worked closely with students in crafting the bill, figuring out the way to best benefit students. And besides that, he was a sweet heart. Even though he and the organization I worked for were sometimes at odds, he retained and freely expressed the fondness he had gained from working with my predecessors.
So I'm not trying to say that every person who's in any way connected with a party is evil. I'm saying that any party - even a third party, for that matter - is going to be a mixed bag.
So if you must vote, or even get involved in a campaign, look at who the person you're voting or campaigning for really is. The party line will tell you nothing.
Log your ballots with Sari Krosinsky at michal_kro@hotmail.com.
