Red White & Blue Hens

College students in Delaware who think right is right, and left is wrong. We study hard, party hard, and play hardball.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Moderates United?

Big picture strategists in both the Democratic and Republican parties like to speculate on the "emerging [insert favorite party] majority." Yet the only trend in evidence is an emerging independent majority. A 2001 University of Michigan study claims that the number of self-described independents rose in the second half of the 20th century from 28% to 37% of the electorate.

If this figure remained steady, for one of the two big parties to secure 51% it would have to leave the other with at most 12%. This is unimaginable. And the number of self-described independents is only likely to keep rising.

How to explain this trend is not a matter that can be easily settled, but a good starting-point explanation is that a certain kind of political center has consolidated that is economically conservative and socially tolerant, if not liberal.

As the lower-middle class of American society becomes economically literate, and the upper middle class is increasingly savvy, they become more market-friendly. With a better grasp of the mechanisms by which markets generate and then disseminate wealth, the power of economic populism is on the decrease. To be sure, a trend such as this cannot be linear and necessarily experiences periods of ups and downs. But there is an inevitability to it that the far Left cannot acknowledge.

Read the whole thing, as well as a rant on diversity at my blog.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Activites Night a Rousing Success!

First I'd like to thank all those who helped out at this evening's activities night at UD, helping us to sign up over 150 members. You guys are great, and we'll make UDCR's stronger than ever.

Second, but perhaps more importantly, I'd like to thank all those who did sign up, and officially welcome them to the Delaware College Republican family.

Also, I finally met Mike McKain in person.

All in all, a great success, and a great way to kick off the new semester at UD!

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Welcome Back!

So the school year officially starts this Tuesday, but I thought today would be a good day to welcome everybody back for Fall 2005.

This year, I hope to add more bloggers, have more fun with the CDems, and get some good discussion going. Membership is open to any College Republicans in Delaware. Send me an e-mail if you want to join, and I'll help you get started (it isn't that hard). So study hard, party hard, and play hardball.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Take a lesson from Madden

It was my best friend(Mike) and me. It was two controllers in our hands. It was 1994. It was SEGA, and it was Joe Montana sports talk football. We've come a long way since then.

Back then, we played this game religously: hours on end. I remember it was a month of July, where we had back-2-back-2-back sleepovers: 3 nights in a row for the first time ever. What did we do: played SEGA. I was always the Vikings, and he was either the Eagles(worst team) or 49ers (best team). You could run pass plays, or running plays and that was about it. No trades, no free agents: just football- and it was awesome. Now: it's ancient.

Madden 2006 is about to come out in just a few days. It has more plays, more commentary, MUCH BETTER graphics, more features: franchise mode, superstar mode, owner mode, you can set the prices of hot dogs. It's so cool, even the cheerleaders jugglers bounce while they dance (Mike's favorite feature).

Once upon a time, the President was Franklin Roosevelt, and the country was in crisis. In a sense: Roosevelt built the first video games. He didn't just create "Joe Montana sports talk football", but he also created SimCity and other "ancient" games. In reality we call them Social Security and Medicare. They were big, they were awesome, they provided a service and it was "great"....

Now, here we are, 60+ years after Roosevelt, and we're still playing the same old video games: and they're getting old! We can do so much better- and the numbers prove it. Social Security is headed down a path that will put it in deficit and one day it will no longer be functional. It's time to end the days of the game cartridges of Sega, and time to move onto the CD's of PS2 and XBox. It's time to move on from simple benefits that are becomming smaller and smaller (like a SEGA game would get worse and worse the longer you played: if the SEGA got too hot)to personal investment accounts that bring promise to the table, and the hope of one day having the ability to build true wealth.

It's time to get modern, Joe Montana Sports talk football was great, but I wouldn't have the patience for it today. It's time to move on.