by Mike Still
Daily Collegian
U-Wire
Attention first-year men: If you are a so-called nice guy, you're going to get much less action than aggressive jerks do. You know that guy who lives down the hall from you and acts all tough like he's Vin Diesel's idiot brother? Yeah, he's going to score much more than you for the next four years.
Attention Democrats: Please see statement above, substituting "Republicans" and "winning seats in the U.S. Senate and House," where appropriate.
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Most male students have had that conversation with a female friend, where she tells him that "most girls really are looking for a 'nice guy,' really they are." Disillusion quickly follows, when the dude sees the same female friend at a party that weekend, dancing with the aforementioned jerk from your dorm. The abstract, theoretical support for the "nice guy" ideal is quashed by the action of hooking up with the jerk.
On Tuesday, this situation was writ large across the nation. Looking out at a populace prepared to vote, one saw masses who felt the faltering economy to be the most pressing issue facing America. Indeed, according to the Gallup Organization, 45 percent of registered voters said the economy would be the issue that decided their vote vs. only 41 percent for a war with Iraq. With Democrats characterized in Gallup polls as much stronger in handling the economy than Republicans, as well as being far stronger in related domestic areas such as education, social security and healthcare, it would seem as though the Dems had the election in the bag.
But just as that one guy often loses out to the other one at parties all throughout Happy Valley, so fell the Democrat-controlled Senate to the GOP on Election Day. The American people, while espousing a desire to focus on "nice guy" issues wound up opening their arms and embracing the aggressive jerk. We as a people chose invasion planning over economic rebuilding. We chose progressively larger tax cuts for the wealthy over progressive social programs. We chose military might and ignored environmental plight.
So the question remains, why does the "nice guy" lose? The answer is simple. When we say "nice guy," we often really mean "wimp." And nobody likes a wimp.
The Democrats lost control of the Senate on Tuesday because they had no teeth. They had no clear conviction. They were a bunch of "nice guys" with no clear agenda, no clear reason for a voter to differentiate them from the Republicans.
With the perception of Bush as untouchable, the Democrats deemed it politically expedient to characterize themselves as simple, agreeable "nice guys," who wouldn't dream of speaking out strongly against the president's policies.
The Democrats, however, missed the crux of Bush's popularity. Bush isn't popular because of his policies. Rather, he's popular because he has become a symbol of America. In spite of his overall popularity, a strong undercurrent of disapproval can be felt throughout America towards Bush's policies, domestic and foreign alike.
To keep control of the Senate and gain control of the House, all the Democrats would have had to do was acknowledge the existence of this disapproval, tap into it and truly become a loyal opposition. But they were crippled by their persistence on going soft. And our democracy suffers because of it.
Few Democrats spoke loudly against an invasion of Iraq and in the end, the Senate vote allowing for possible military action was 99-1. The lone dissenter was Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
Wellstone, who died two weeks ago in a plane crash, was a person of conviction, a person of passion, a person of principle. As the Democratic Party reels from its Tuesday loses, it should look to the convictions of the late senator, and remember that passion and principle need to drive democracy.
Otherwise, the "nice guys" will continue to finish last.
