The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

“When are you going to take the gloves off?”

“How about Tuesday night?”

That exchange took place at a John McCain town hall meeting last week, with the question posed by an older lady and answered by the candidate himself. As you’re reading this, you will probably already know how off the gloves came during Tuesday’s debate. It seems, though, that the process of dragging down the 2008 presidential campaign has already started.
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This column was posted to the Indiana Daily Student website Wednesday, October 1.

The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

I know this happens a lot, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of lying in this year’s election, from the grassroots level on up. And this may just be my viewpoint, since I’m a known liberal, but it seems that there have been many more untruthful smears against Barack Obama than against John McCain, and many more personal attacks against him.

But on that, it doesn’t really matter what I think because that’s not the subject of this column. The important thing is that the Obama campaign believes its candidate’s record and character are being distorted, and it is trying to take action, like any responsible campaign would. The way they’ve done it, though, has caused issues – though it honestly shouldn’t have.
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This column was posted to the Indiana Daily Student website Wednesday, September 24.

The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

As the nation’s economy stands on the brink of collapse – literally, since last week on Good Morning America, Senator Chris Dodd said that leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system” – there is conflict over how best to prevent that collapse.

There seems to be consensus among almost all involved (except, of course, for one presidential candidate) that something must be done. The $700 billion bailout package for the failing financial firms that is currently being deliberated in Congress is generally seen as an acceptable first step. Personally, I hate the idea of the government swooping in to save companies who are in trouble mainly because of bad management and greed, but it appears that if that doesn’t happen, money will cease to exist and we’ll all have to revert to hunting and gathering, so leaving AIG and corporations of its ilk out to dry doesn’t seem like a viable option.
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The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel is a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

When it came to writing my column this week, I was in about the same position as Barack Obama. At the risk of sounding harsh or callous, when the stock market tanked on Monday, it was almost like shooting fish in a barrel.

Over the past couple of weeks coverage of the election has been centered on varying levels of attention to Sarah Palin, ranging from surprise to fawning, then to an all-out assault, and now to a pretty respectable level of analysis in which even conservatives are judging her pretty rationally.

But after Monday’s Dow Jones drop, the largest since September of 2001, the eye of the nation has finally shifted somewhat back to the issues, and that bodes very well for Barack Obama – especially because the issue is the economy, and his opponent is John McCain.
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The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel will be a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

Last week, Hillary Clinton did exactly the opposite of what she needed in order to have a shot at the Democratic nomination. She needed opponent Barack Obama to slip up, to say something offensive or stupid, to somehow sabotage his own campaign at the last second. Instead, Clinton herself was the one shooting off her mouth.

As you almost definitely know, Clinton implied – accidentally or otherwise – that part of the reason why she was remaining in the primary race was because there was a possibility that a game-changing event might occur. You know, something simple like Obama being shot to death.

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The Spin Zone

Thomas Wachtel will be a junior majoring in political science and journalism.

Recently, there was a primary election in West Virginia. You may not have noticed this, because it was largely irrelevant – it was generally assumed that Hillary Clinton would win due to the state’s demographic breakdown, and Barack Obama is probably going to clinch the nomination fairly soon (like next week) anyway. So most people didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the West Virginia primary until it was over.

Which was when two things happened – first, people noticed that Clinton got 67 percent of the vote. Second, the Daily Show aired several interviews done with West Virginia voters (other news programs probably did too, but I don’t watch other news programs).

Here are some direct quotes from the more esteemed people of the Mountain State, via Jon Stewart and company:

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Dave Matthews. Bill Clinton. Kal Penn. Chelsea Clinton. Jeremy Piven. Sean Astin.

All are celebrities of varying levels of fame, and all are surrogates for either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama. And in the past week and a half, all six have made visits to Bloomington.

Yes, it’s primary season in America, and somehow the state of Indiana has stumbled into a rare position of relevance. As everyone whose brain retains knowledge is already aware, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is the closest it’s been since the infamous bloodbath that was the 1968 Democratic National Convention. With only a few states remaining, Indiana’s May 6 vote and the 84 delegates that will be doled out based on its results are more crucial than they’ve been since the days of John F. Kennedy.

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Shortly after Fidel Castro stepped down as president of Cuba in February, ending a reign that began in 1959, his brother Raul was elected as his successor. Since Raul was preferred by Fidel to take that position, it was widely speculated that Fidel’s departure wouldn’t bring any significant changes to Cuban domestic or foreign policy.

Thus far, it would appear that those assumptions were false.

On Monday, the government ended a ban on Cuban use of luxury hotels and resorts. Already, the government has changed rules to allow Cubans to purchase items such as computers and plasma TVs, and Cubans will soon be allowed to buy cell phones. Before these changes, only foreign visitors or companies were allowed to buy such goods.

It would appear that, at least to this point, the Cuban government is shedding some of the control that it’s held since Fidel Castro took power. The question is whether or not this trend will continue.

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Last week was the fifth anniversary of the United States’ invasion of Iraq. The war has turned out to be the single most divisive issue in the nation today, as well as the frontrunner for “thing President George W. Bush will be most remembered for.” The war’s importance cannot be understated, from the misery and bravery of soldiers and their families, to the effects on politics and social relations at home, to the effects on America’s image abroad.

It has been a significant issue in the presidential races, though not nearly as central as it was in the 2006 midterm elections. All of the candidates have had to make strong statements about how they will handle Iraq — Sen. Hillary Clinton originally voted for the war but has since come to the new party line of opposition; Sen. Barack Obama uses his constant opposition to the war as an anti-Clinton weapon, claiming he has better judgment; Sen. John McCain has said that the war is winnable, and he’s willing to stay as long as it takes to do so, and, while we’re at it, we might as well bomb Iran.

Considering the American people were told that this would be a relatively short conflict, and that we were told that the mission was accomplished in May 2003, it seems that the fifth anniversary of the war is as good a time as any to discuss an exit plan. Discussing this before the war started would have been good, too, but it’s a bit late for that now.

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Bill Simmons is one of my favorite writers, and the column he posted Friday (which can be read here) is especially good. It’s about a young man from Los Angeles, a star high school running back, who was gunned down when someone suspected him to be a member of the wrong gang. [He was not involved in gang activity at all.] Here’s a taste:

Like everyone else, I was waiting for an answer when Jamiel Sr. somehow pulled himself together and started speaking. He mentioned the fear of residing in a gang-infested city, how he felt powerless when Jas got older for the same reason that every parent starts to feel powerless — once children start spreading their wings and parents realize they can’t spend every second of the day with them, there comes a point when the parents just have to cross their fingers, let the children spread those wings and hope for the best. Still, as Jamiel Sr. put it, “We shouldn’t have to cringe every time our kids go outside.”