University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 30 text:

One Nation (In)divisible? fAinzim»ydtLii»itit itz wtiiti iit ' iti creates division in the nation by Stephanie Pace The 2004 presidential election between republican President George W. Bush and his democratic rival Senator John Kerry came out with a republican win. Bush was inaugurated to a second four-year term on Thursday, January 20, 2005 Bush became the first candidate since his father — George W. Bush, who won the election in 1988 — to receive over 50% of the popular vote. This year ' s election also marked the seventh consecutive election in which the Democratic Committee failed to reach that threshold. At least 12 million more votes were cast than in the 2000 election, which both parties and their allies attributed to the intensity of the division between he candidates and partly to extensive voter registration and publicity. The large turnout enabled each major- party candidate to set a record Bush received the largest number of votes of any Presidential candidate in U.S. history. Kerry also received more votes than any candidate in the previous U.S. election, but still was not enough for a win; Bush won with the smallest margin of victory of a sitting president in U.S. history in terms of the percentage of the popular vote Specifically Bush received 2.5% more than Kerry; the closest previous margin won by a sitting President was 3.2% for Woodrow Wilson in 1916 In terms of absolute number of popular votes, his victory margin was approximately 3 million votes, which was the smallest of any sitting President since Harry S Truman in 1 948. Furthermore, more votes were cast for candidates other than the winner than In any previous us presidential elections As in 2000, electoral votes split along sharp geographical lines: the west coast, northeast, and most of the Great Lakes region for Kerry, and the southeast, Great Plains, and the IVIountain states for Bush. Minor- party candidates received many fewer votes, dropping from a total of 3.5 percent in 2000 to approximately 1 percent. The election marked the first time an incumbent president was re- elected while his political party Increased its numbers in both houses of Congress since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1936 election. The Republican Party increased its majorities In both houses of Congress. The members of the Electoral College formally voted on December 13, 2004. On January 6, 2005, when Congress met for the official counting of the electoral votes, democratic congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones and senator Barbara Boxer made an official objection of the counting of Ohio ' s electoral votes. As a result, the House and Senate separately debated the inclusion of Ohio ' s votes. Within four hours of the objection, however, the last effective challenge to the election results ended, when the Senate voted 74-1 and the House voted 267-31 to reject the challenge to Ohio ' s votes. In the final accepted count. Bush received 286 electoral votes, and Kerry received 251 For Vice President, 286 votes went to Bush ' s running mate, Dick Cheney and 252 to Edwards. Even if Congress had voted to reject Ohio ' s 20 electoral votes, the outcome would have been the same. The 518 valid votes cast instead of 538, the majority necessary for election by the Electoral College under the Twelfth Amendment would have been 260 votes, which Bush and Cheney, each with 266. would have reached. While the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards tickets ran in every state and the District of Columbia, Ralph Nader, although Initially running as an independent, was listed in several states as the Reform Party candidate, the Populist Party candidate, the Better Life Party candidate, or the PEC candidate In other states he was no a candidate because he did not meet the requirements in those states for ballot access. The Reform Party endorsed him; however, he did not meet the requirements in those states for ballot parties, and in many states wtiat used to be the Reform Party is now the America First Party. which did not endorse Nader On September 18, 2004, the Florida Supreme Court ordered that Nader be included on the ballot in Florida for the election. Florida is a swing state that was the subject of much controversy in the previous election. As a result, some states sent a different number of electors to the U.S. Electoral College, since the number of electors allotted to a state is equal to the sum of the number of Senators and Representatives from that state. Before the outcome of the election, some supporters of democratic presidential candidate John Kerry were concerned that the I independent candidacy of Ralph Nader would split the vote against the incumbent, thus allowing Republican presidential candidate George W Bush to win the 2004 election. Many democrats blame Ralph Nader for splitting the vote in the 2000 presidential election when he ran as the candidate of the Green Party. Such splits are of particular concern because most states assign the presidential electors they send to the Electoral College, to the candidate with the most votes, even if those votes are less than 50 percent of the total votes cast — in such a situation, a relatively small number of votes can make a very big difference While Ralph Nader and the Green Party ultimately supported replacing the Electoral College with direct popular elections, both have also assigned that states instead use instant-runoff voting to select their presidential electors, which would partially address the issue of vote splitting Opponents of Ralph Nader ' s candidacy often referred to vote splitting as the spoiler effect Some voters who preferred Ralph 26

Page 29 text:

Thursday ' s panel of Free Speech Movement veterans who discussed how they organized the movement. Wednesday ' s Mario Savio Memorial lecture by columnist Molly Ivins packed Zellerbach Hall, but mostly with move- ment veterans. People are unlikely to miss class to go to another class, said Leybovich, who helped organize the events. On the other hand, attendance at the noon rally on Friday, which featured Dean, was roughly 3,000 people, which far exceeded the organizers ' expectations. It went well beyond what we had hoped it would be, said Leybovich, regarding the noon rally. We had high hopes for it, but it ' s always a nagging worry of ' Do students care? ' But the people that were here were engaged. When Dean began his speech on Sproui, the rally took on an anti-Bush tone. I want a president of the United States that ' s going to welcome every single American into the American family, Dean said. Dean cited his own quick rise to the top of the presidential primaries as a result of grass- roots organization and campaign contribu- tions from the Internet and urged students to use their power to bring a new era of democ- racy to America. There was another lesson that arose from this place 40 years ago. And that is ordinary people can make an enormous difference - the only thing that holds you back is you believe you can ' t, Dean said to the enthusiastic crowd. But the enthusiasm quickly waned. After Dean ' s speech, the crowed cleared out. with most students not hearing the speeches by Bob Kearney and Tony Serra from the ACLU. A plausible reason for this may be that many of the students who attended the rally did not do so to celebrate Mario Savio ' s historical speech and rally but to hear Dean speak. THE FREE SPEi JAMES K. MOFFIT UNDERGRAODATE LIBRARY • «; ; . Some students felt the speakers at the event were too partisan. I did find it disappointing that so much of it was Bush bashing and Patriot Act bashing. said Amaury Gallais. president of Berkeley Col- lege Republicans. It didn ' t have to be politi- cally oriented. It could have been about free speech and the importance of voting. Becca Cramer, co-president of the Berkeley ACLU agreed. I was surprised. As a represen- tative of a nonpartisan group that co-spon- sored it. I was a little upset, she said. The patrol car in Sproui Plaza was adorned on Friday with a life-size photograph Jack Weinberg, who was arrested in 1 964 for ta- bling in front of Sproui Hall. I think some people probably went into it thinking we were going to rekindle student activism just like the way it was. said Lee Felsenstein. a movement veteran. But that is silly because the world isn ' t like it was. •A M I ' IF Jr. ,kk. W ' T ;r i Most students at the Free Speech Movement Caf6 are just looking (or a quick bite to eat or a place to study But the caf« IS filled with memorabilia from the Free Speech Movement On the walls hang photographs of mass protests and newspaper articles from 1964 cover the tables The cal6 honors the movement that shook the campus and estab- lished Its liberal reputation At the grand opening of the ca(« in 2000. linking it to the Free Speech Movement was criticized Staff, students, and alumni, including veterans of the movement, criticized the cat as selling out the Free Speech Movement They claimed It was commercialized free speech and argued the Univer- sity was inconsiderate of the values the activists of the time stood for Then-Chancellor Robert Berdahl received many angry letters from staff and alumni, condemning the com- mercialization of the Free Speech Movement ■The cat , to be operated to serve as a commercial enter prise rather than a social, political enterprise, seems to n e unfair and not proper, said Michael Rossman. a veteran of the rrxwement and member of the caf planning committee The srmd openmg ol the caf« was nterrupted with outbursts from student protesters Three students m gas masks, who were protesting the lack of organic foods w campus cafes, took the n crophone and sprayed mock pesttcides into the crowd However. Stephen Silberstein, who donated $1 .3 millton to build the caf6. said he wanted students to have a connec- tion to the Free Speech Movement ' I thought It was a good idea to have a memorial to Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement m ttw center of campus. ' satd Siltwrstein. Plans were being made this year for additional seatmg on the terrace of the cafA. In a decision reached in late Sep- temtwr. offtcials chose to add seating under the overhangs of the terrace and to add bar-style seats along the west er d of the terrace In order to accommodate the large mid-day crowd of students

Page 31 text:

Democrat Howard Dean, the Governor of Vermont, speaks at the FSM@40 rally on October 1 1 . 2004 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement- Dean addressed political issues concerning the nation and urged students to make their voice heard. Nader ' s positions over John Kerry ' s voted for John Kerry to avoid splitting the vote against the incumbent, claiming to be choosing the lesser of the two evils. These voters often used slogans such as, anybody but Bush, and a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. A group of people who supported Nader in 2000 have released a statement, entitled Vote to Stop Bush, urging support for Kerry-Edwards in swing states. Bush had preliminary leads of less than 5 percent of the vote in only four states, but even in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico had all eventually gone to Kerry, a Bush win in Ohio would have been created a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, resulting in the House of Representatives voting to decide the winner, with each state, regardless of its population, casting one vote. The upper Midwest bloc of Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin is also notable, casting a sum of 27 electoral votes. However, all the swing states are important. The following is a list of states considered swing states in the 2004 elections by most news organizations and which candidate they actually went for. Because the U.S electoral law is largely state law, individual US states could refuse to allow the to observe the elections on various grounds: for instance, a stat law may require observers to be registered voters from the area A ballot initiative in Colorado, known as Amendment 36, would have changed the way in which the state apportions its electoral votes Rather than assigning all 9 of the state ' s electors to the candidate with a plurality of popular votes, under the amendment Colorado would have assigned presidential elects proportionally to the statewide vote count, which would be a unique system (Nebraska and Maine assign electoral votes based on vote totals within each congressional district). The amendment ultimately failed, receiving only 34% of the vote. Election watchers and political analysts forecasted a number of contested election results in a manner similar to the Florida voting recount of 2000. In Florida, for example, multiple lawsuits were filed even before the election, but few observers expected any of them to change the official result that Bush had outpolled Kerry by roughly 400.000 votes. As of the morning of November 3. the deciding state in the electoral vote count was Ohio, where Bush held a 136,000-vote lead. The Republican Part declared victory on the afternoon of November 3rd Two of the third-party candidates, Badnarik and Cobb, cooperated in requesting a recount of the Ohio vote. The Congressional Democrats who objected to the counting of Ohio ' s electoral votes relied on part on information about voting irregularities provided by observers working for the Cobb campaign After the election, some sources have reported early Indications of possible data irregularities and systematic flaws during the voting process. Although the overall result of the election was not challenged by the Kerry campaign, third-party presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik obtained a recount in Ohio. In the January 6 House of Representatives vote at the official counting of the electoral votes, the motion to reject Ohio ' s electoral votes was supported by 31 Democrats. 178 Republicans. 88 Democrats and one Independent opposed it. Not voting were 52 Republicans and 80 Democrats Four people elected to the House had no yet taken office, and one seat was vacant. When the Senate rejected a similar motion, only its maker. Senator Boxer, supported it with 74 Senators opposed and 25 not voting During the debate, not on Senator, either Democrat or Republican, argued that the outcome of the election should be changed by either court challenge or re-vote.