Category: Mason Votes

Interview with Gerry Connolly

Below is the text of Mason Vote’s Interview with Gerry Connelly, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 11th District.

Q: As people go to the polls what do you want them to think about?
A: I want them to think about the future of the country. this election is a big deal. We have the opportunity to make history and to change the course of the country and I think we’re going to do both of those things tomorrow.

Q: How are you feeling about your chances for a win?
A: Um, cautiously optimistic

Q: What would be your first priority if elected?
A: Well if think our first priority for all of us, should we be elected tomorrow, would be righting our economy. This is the worst economy melt down since 1929.

Q:What kind of affect do you expect George Mason University students’ votes will have on the outcome of the election?
A: You know I have never seen the campus as energized as I have this year. For example, I don’t know if you knew that the head of young democrats is a part of my campaign structure.

I was on campus the night of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in August and we had 200 students plus on a summer night.

Q: How will you help students if you are elected?
A: One of the things I certainly want to do is make college more affordable and student loans more available. We also, obviously, the Federal Government needs to put a premium on higher education especially if we want to stay competitive in the global marketplace.

Claims That Election Day has Been Moved Are False

At 1:16 a.m., an email was sent from an address that appears to belong to Provost Peter Stearns. The email reads as follows:

To the Mason Community:

Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

This information is false. Election Day is always the Tuesday after the first Monday of November. It would take an act of Congress for the date of a national election to be moved.

Stearns was not available for comment by deadline.

Founding Fathers Would Not Recognize Current Office

By Rashad Mulla

Because of the increased responsibilities of recent presidents, the United States’ first leaders would not recognize today’s presidency, political scholar Joseph Pika said.

Pika, co-author of “Politics of the Presidency,” spoke live via video conference to students from Denver University, Pace University in Manhattan and George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. on Oct. 9. Pika said the president had little executive power when the position was first conceived in 1788. His remarks are part of the distance learning collaboration between C-SPAN, the Cable Center at the University of Denver, and the three universities.

“The expectations of the presidency have surpassed the realistic possibilities of the (job),” said Pika, a political science professor at the University of Delaware. “The president was really tailor-made for this media age.”

George Mason student Taft Nesbitt agreed with Pika and said his assertion was grounded in fact.

“The presidency has definitely evolved and become more powerful,” Nesbitt said. “The position has become much more encompassing than the Founding Fathers ever envisioned it being.”
Pika said the ascent of the president’s political power has been a gradual process, including President George W. Bush’s current term.

“A slow accretion of power keeps going in the president’s direction,” he said. “Now, the presidency requires a miracle worker to be successful.”

Pika said the presidency has gotten so powerful that presidents now can frequently over-promise and under-deliver, concepts Mason guest instructor Steve Farnsworth explained to his students on Oct. 2.

One example was President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, Pika said. In his book, Pika wrote that Bush projected himself as an effective “wartime president” at the beginning of the war, then lost public support for the war. Now, Pika says wartime presidency has lost its luster.

“The appeal is still there,” Pika said. “But a lot of the shine has worn off.”

Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain both frequently over-promise in their campaigns, Farnsworth said on Oct. 2. This development is fully attributable to the added power of the presidency, added Nesbitt. The Founding Fathers did not have the power to make such promises, he said.

“(The presidency) wasn’t supposed to be the all-encompassing, pseudo-monarchy that it is today,” Nesbitt said.

According to Pika, when one of the candidates is elected president in three weeks, he will have one of the toughest jobs in U.S. history.

From: UPI

Negative Campaign Ads Effective, Not Truthful

By Rashad Mulla

Negative presidential campaign advertisements are effective in forming and changing public opinion, according to Thom Mozloom, founder and owner of The M Network, a professional media planning and branding agency.

Broadcast live via video conference from Washington, D.C., Mozloom spoke to college students from the University of Denver, Pace University in Manhattan and George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. on Sept. 11. Mozloom said negative campaign advertisements, no matter their factual merits, are effective in shaping this election.

“The reason why you keep seeing negative ads or fear tactic ads come out is, quite simply, because they work,” said Mozloom,

George Mason guest instructor Steve Taylor pounced on to the question of truth 20 minutes into the broadcast.

“It’s depressing to learn I was right,” said Taylor, a former White House correspondent for ABC Radio. “It’s a lowest common denominator system. It basically proved lies work.”

Feedback from the George Mason students reflected Taylor’s perception of truth being looked over in campaign advertisements.

“I think truth should be important,” George Mason student Monica Block said during the live taping. “But I think when it comes to a 30-second ad, people aren’t really going to do their research.”

In response to Block’s comment, Mozloom said truth should be in the discussion, but politicians don’t deem it important.

“The politicians who use these spots (aren’t) fact-checking them,” Mozloom said. “There’s no repercussion to it.”

In an example of his assertion, Mozloom said Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s famed celebrity advertisement, in which McCain compared Sen. Barack Obama to Paris Hilton, was meant to counter the Democratic presidential nominee’s trip to Europe.

“That issue was exasperated by the Obama camp’s response,” Mozloom said. “They gave a response to this ad, which, for the life of me, I couldn’t fathom. You want that news cycle to change again as fast as possible.”

Instead, Paris Hilton came out with her own celebrity advertisement, Obama made one of his own, and the media covered the advertisement for three weeks. McCain’s strategy worked, and no semblance of fact was needed, Mozloom said.

“The time that was spent talking about (the advertisement) was far greater than the ad run itself and the money they paid for that ad,” Mozloom said.

C-SPAN political director and University of Denver professor Steve Scully asked Mozloom to analyze historical presidential advertisements, including “The Daisy Girl,” a 1964 spot by former president Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign when he was running for election against Republican opponent Barry Goldwater. This ad is one of the “hallmarks of negative advertising,” Scully said.

“It caused such a reaction, that they pulled it,” Mozloom said. “The fact that you and I are talking about this 40 years later has to qualify it as one of the greatest political ads of all time.”

After the presentation, Taylor reiterated the importance of advertising in presidential campaigns.

“There is a close connection between political advertising and political journalism,” Taylor said. “You can judge whether the campaigns are playing it safe or going on the attack. It shows the direction they think they are headed in.”

From: UPI

Too Many Election Ads, Too Often

By Katherine Libby

In the weeks leading up to the election, the number of presidential television ad campaigns has soared to an unprecedented level, irritating many young voters.

The Associated Press, surveying approximately 1,000 undecided voters, reported that 60 percent said television advertisements did not sway them one way or another. A third of those voters said they were less likely to vote for either candidate after watching the ads.

Diana Friedman, a student at George Mason University, was first introduced to politics by her father when she was 10. Although she is a self-described liberal, her belief in voting for a candidate rather than a party makes her a voter that such campaign ads target.

Unfortunately for presidential hopefuls, however, the media has never affected her beliefs; instead they have just annoyed her.

“I don’t like listening to or watching the overplayed ads that try to influence the public,” said Friedman. “It’s like they are trying to tell me what to do. I know I am capable of making my own informed decisions… so I always just tune it out.”

Friedman’s feeling towards such ads seems to be a common trend among a number of young voters. For recent George Mason graduate Darya Seraj, it’s not just about the frequency of the campaign advertisements, it’s about the content too.

Seraj believes that the ad campaigns can confuse a viewer. “It bothers me that facts are often taken out of context and can seriously mislead viewers,” said Seraj. “The first time I voted was when I was 20 and that’s mainly because I didn’t know who to believe.”

Although Seraj did her research on candidates and their policies, the constant presentation of new facts about one side or the other made her question her beliefs. “I would hear something about a candidate in an ad, I would check to see if it was true. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t. Ultimately I was left confused and frustrated,” said Seraj.

While it is clear that these television ad campaigns are an important tool for presidential candidates, both Friedman and Seraj said that the more the ads are aired, the more irritated they become and the less likely they are to listen.

From: UPI