Political Campaigning (Tuesday, January 10, 4th Period)

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Josh was sipping a cup of coffee and drawing devil's horns on the Washington Post's front page photo of the Speaker of the House when his political campaigning class arrived.

"Welcome to political campaigning. I'm Josh Lyman and up until a few weeks ago I was the deputy chief of staff for President Josiah Bartlet. I was with his campaign pretty much from the beginning and have been in and around politics for almost as long as I can remember. I'm here to tell you that campaigning is probably the most fun you can have while still wearing clothing."

He coughed. "Probably not something I should've said. Moving on. The only way that I know how to teach campaigning is to actually make you run campaigns. Since there are nine of you, you will be divided into three groups of three. These will be the people you will work with all semester long. My TA Donna,"--he pointed at Angel--"and I will be putting those lists together before the next class, so today is your chance to impress me with your knowledge of the current political climate."

He pointed at a huge 295 he had scrawled onto the chalkboard. "That's the number of days left until Election Day 2006. Time is the enemy of all campaigns--you can get more of everything else--people, money--but you can never get more time. No one is going to move the election for you because you're not ready." He smiled a little wickedly. "This is also the last time I'm going to give you the number. Starting next class, I will be randomly picking one of you to tell me how many days there are until E-Day. If you get it wrong, you lose half of your participation credit for that day." He slapped his hand on his desk. "That number, as a political operative, is your life. That number is even scarier than I am.

"I realize that some of you might not be from the United States, or even from, um, this planet. Most of this stuff is pretty universal to apply, but I know US politics, so I'll be using it as examples. If you have any questions about a reference I might toss out, please stop me and tell me to explain."

He pointed to a student at random. "Please tell me your name, your general political philosophy--I'll take Democrat or Republican, for those of you who know what that means, but try to elaborate a bit for people here who might not know what I'm talking about--, and a policy issue you think will be important in this election cycle. The rest of you, same questions. But no overlapping on policy issues--there are going to be at least nine issues that'll be important."

He lifted his hands. "Wow me, guys."

Comments

Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Discussion questions

[courier-gavin.livejournal.com]

"My name is still Jake, although apparently I will also be answering to Donna." He glanced over at Angel. "That could get confusing. I believe in freedom of information for me, not registering mutants and enabling countries that make coffee to make more."

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Very good. Freedom of information, in particular, has become a very hot button among certain segments of the population recently."

Re: Discussion questions

[courier-gavin.livejournal.com]

"If you can't drown useful information in a whole lot of crap, you're just not trying hard enough," Jake said firmly on that matter.

Re: Discussion questions

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"I'm Elizabeth Weir, and going by political parties, I'm a Democrat. Going on political philosophy, however, my beliefs would be linked to liberalism, because we should all have equal rights and that there should be as much freedom and opportunity for others as possible.

A policy issue? The Federal budget, and the deficit, which is what? Over $300 billion now. That has impacts on the economy, and also on other policies."

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"The deficit is a tricky thing to work into a campaign," Josh said. "What kind of hook would you use to make it so people in, say, Montana, would care?"

Re: Discussion questions

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

"For Montana? Make it about cows?" Elizabeth muttered to herself, before straightening up. "Taxes. People don't want to have to pay increased taxes, but nor do they want public services to suffer. But people need to know that the budget needs to be balanced to avoid long term financial disaster. People aren't stupid. Well," she corrected. "Some people aren't stupid. They have to deal with their own finances. You just need to put it in a context that they're familiar with."

Re: Discussion questions

[auroryborealis.livejournal.com]

"Um. I'm Rory Gilmore, and I'm a Democrat, because Republicans just really don't make sense to me. And trust me on that, because I've spent my entire life listening to a pair of them bicker. I believe in helping people. Doing what we can for as many as possible." She smiled. "And I'll be a bright and shiny brand-new eighteen by the next election, so yay for that."

"Um. As for a policy issue...health care. It always seems to come up."

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Josh gave Rory a wry smile. "Mostly because we haven't come up with a decent solution to the problem of health care in this country. Until we do, health care will always be one of the top five issues that every campaign has to deal with." He grinned a little wider. "And I'm glad to hear you'll be able to register to vote for this cycle."

Re: Discussion questions

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"I'm Parker, and I don't consider myself affiliated with either national party, really. Too many disagreements with each. My political philosophy would probably be called laissez-faire, smaller government, bigger budgets."

"As for political issues, I'd have to say women's rights, legal protection for children, and the bolstering the economy. We can't keep sending jobs overseas--" even though the Centre does it all the time "-- and expect our economy to thrive."

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Interesting mix," Josh replied. "Women's rights can certainly never be overlooked in campaign--it motivates a lot of single-issue voters." His face wrinkled up a bit thinking about Amy. "Yeah. Don't underestimate the power of that group--either side."

Re: Discussion questions

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"Hardly. I've heard enough from the opposition to know how vehement they can be. And I'm pretty vehement, so...." Parker makes note of the phrase 'single-issue voter' and tries to think what Fandom's equivalent would be.

Re: Discussion questions

[fh_jackass]

"My name's Logan. I guess I'm kind of a Libertarian. I want the government to keep its hands off my money and its nose out of my business." Logan tapped his pen on his open notebook. "And for policy issues - I guess Iraq's a big one, isn't it?"

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Josh nodded. "You're gonna look pretty out of touch if you don't at least mention it, regardless of what part of the country you're in."

Re: Discussion questions

[courier-gavin.livejournal.com]

Jake's hand went up. "Iraq?"

Re: Discussion questions

[psycho-barbie.livejournal.com]

"I'm Callisto, and I believe in freedom from tyranny, the right to exact my vengeance on Xena, keeping weapons out of the hands of people too stupid to use them properly, and lower vending machine prices."

"As for policy, weapons control, I guess?"

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Weapons control, like the women's rights issues that Parker brought up, tend to be very hot button issues--especially in terms of personal firearms access." Josh rolled his eyes. "Not one of my favorite parts of the political process."

Re: Discussion questions

[psycho-barbie.livejournal.com]

"I saw that, when they introduced the weapons ban which I'm sekritly ignoring here, which admittedly I'm not happy about as in it's current form it punishes those of us who know proper weapons handling techniques as well as those idiots who should be kept away from anything remotely resembling a weapon. Which includes silverware."

Re: Discussion questions

[lady-jessica-bg.livejournal.com]

I believe in whatever bests prevent stagnation. Where I come from, the Bene Gesserit, as our association is known, do a lot of behind the throne work, all in the interests of serving the human race. Of course, I'm about to join the Bene Gesserit scheme to control breeding--for the sake of the human race, naturally--but that's totally irrelevant.

I think balance of power between central and lesser governments has played a pretty big factor in my life.

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Interesting," Josh said. "They tend to call themselves consultants or lobbyists around here, and charge ridiculous amounts of money for their services."

Re: Discussion questions

[lady-jessica-bg.livejournal.com]

Jessica smiles, not wickedly at all, of course. "Oh, we never ask for money...just, you know, control over the emperor's daughters and his genetic future."

Re: Discussion questions

[threeweapons.livejournal.com]

Alanna gulped. "Um, Alanna, and I'm from around the 14th century in a world that has magic so I have a very vague idea of what you're asking of us. I guess I'm kind of liberal for my world, conservative for yours. Women's rights are a big thing for me, but Miss Parker already took that so, um, a better election method?"

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Josh grinned. "You don't like our method of letting the people decide? How do you do it back where you're from?"

Re: Discussion questions

[notstakedyet.livejournal.com]

Angel kept his eyes down on his paper as everybody else talked. His pen moved, but if anybody looked over his shoulder they would see he was only drawing squares and then filling them in with determined, sharp motions. If he wasn't so pale someone might also notice a white-knuckle grip.

When his turn came he didn't look up, nor did he raise his voice more than absolutely necessary to be heard by other people.

"Angel. Citizenship's kind of a funny thing so I'm pretty much nothing. And, I dunno, winning?"

Re: Discussion questions

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Winning's good," Josh said, looking at Angel, "but a plan that's just 'getting more votes than the other guy' only goes so far. Thus the issues. We managed to discuss defense and foreign policy, education, the economy, and health care. Can you think of any major groups we might be forgetting about. Who get checks from the government, for instance, and yell at you to get off their yards?"