Students evaluate the election

November 13, 2008 by Mark Skinner 

Professors, students discuss the significance of the presidential election

Following up on the Oct. 27 pre-election forum, the political science department’s post-election forum exceeded expectations, as more than 100 students attended.

Less than 20 students attended the pre-election forum.

Monday’s post-election forum took place at the Marjorie Barrick Museum, with a panel consisting of political science professors Kenneth Fernandez, Ted Jelen, Dennis Pirages, Rebecca Wood, Mehran Tamadonfar and Steven Parker.

Among the issues discussed were the significance of this election, the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration and its possible policies.

Jelen, a specialist in religion and politics and political behavior, opened the forum, asking, “Is the culture war over? The social issue cleavage on things like abortion, same sex marriage and so on that dominated the so-called boomer generation, and the answer to that I think is a resounding no.”

He said that he was surprised to see that while the presidential election was taking place, measures passed prohibiting same sex marriage in many states, including California.

Parker, a specialist in American government and environmental policy, said that “The Bush administration has been pushing ahead very vigorously to get the licensing process completed [for Yucca Mountain],” that if they managed to get the license, Obama will use his administrative power to stop or delay it.” 

“Something like that could get dragged out for four or more years.”

Shifting gears, he added, “The economy, of course, is the number one thing… [Obama] will be dealing with mortgages and bankruptcy law.”

Parker moved on from the economy to another issue on voters’ minds this year, race.

Parker said, “One in five American chief executives have either been the target of assassination or have been assassinated. [Obama] is probably a more salient target for the hate groups in the country than any chief executive that we have had… Pray for the Secret Service.”

Pirages, a specialist in international relations said, “The election is over, but I think the new president is going to face some really daunting tasks in the near future.”

“Because of the policies of this most recent administration we’re now in the situation where the top 1 percent of income earners get a full 25 percent of the income in the United States,” Pirages said. 

“The last time we had such a maldistribution of income in the United States was the wonderful year 1928, and we all know what that lead to.”

Pirages added, “President Obama is broke. He’ll come into office with a deficit of about 12 trillion dollars, and financing that at 4.5 percent a year I think will consume about 20 percent of the national budget, that doesn’t leave much left over for new social policies,” such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“We don’t know how enduring this recession and depression its actually going to be.”

As for Sen. John McCain’s election campaign, Pirages said, “I think no Republican candidate could have possibly pulled this election out given the economic history that was being written at the time the campaign was taking place, even with the injection of our friend from Alaska.”

Tamadonfar, a specialist in international relations and the Middle East said, “Policy-making processes are subject to institutional constraints. In other words, no individual can come in and really bring about change on his own; rather an individual is subject to those constraints.”

“I’m trying more than anything else to convince you that you have to somehow lower your expectations,” he added.

Fernandez, a specialist in public policy and public opinion said, “If we look at the patterns, we don’t want to blow out too much from this election and read that this is going to be another 40 years of Democratic dominance. Obama has a very short honeymoon period, as soon as you take office, your popularity starts to go down.”

“It’ll be interesting to see how successful Obama is… I think that as the excitement wanes off, I think we will be confronted by some political realities that Obama has to face.”

On the issue of divided government and future elections Jelen said, “It will be very interesting to see, both in the country at large and in Nevada in particular, whether the Democrats can consolidate and maintain some portion of their gains without Barack Obama running at the top of their ticket.”

Wood, a specialist in judicial behavior, said Obama will have a unified government and it will be interesting to see his choices for Federal and Supreme Court judges.

“It’s likely that he be interested in choosing people from academia,” Wood said.

“He’s also expressed this interest in finding potential nominees who have this empathy for certain subsections of the population.”

She went on to say that the new administration in the White House and Congress will be a “newly freed up policy-making engine.”

“I would anticipate that there is a potential for something like gay marriage to end up on the agenda,” she said.

Pirages rebutted.

“The Republicans still have more than 40 votes, and during the last few months they have been quite willing to tie up the Senate with the filibuster,” he said, “which could keep the Obama agenda from becoming a reality.”

On the issue of foreign policy he added, “It’s clear that the election of Obama makes a difference internationally. Polls around the world suddenly show that the U.S. is in favor in a lot of countries again.”

“I think there are big opportunities for the Obama administration internationally to exert some leadership. Unfortunately, foreign affairs is not president-to-be Obama’s strong suit.”

Tamadonfar spoke about the Middle East, saying, “We cannot win a war in Iraq. We cannot win a war in Afghanistan. Frankly nobody has won wars in those countries.”

He also addressed the complexities of power transition in Egypt and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and described current policy towards Pakistan as “problematic.” He then moved on to the topic of Iran.

“Iranians are committed to the development of nuclear capability, not necessarily nuclear weapons,” he said.

“If one thinks that Iranians are going to simply put that aside because somebody is not going to sell them something or not buy something from them, that is simply very uneducated.”

He said, “International law is very powerful… it’s also based on reciprocity. We need to respect international law, if for nothing else than it protects our own interests.”

“Sooner or later we have to address some of these issues in a wise, equitable and fair way, because we have to live in this international community and we don’t have a lot of time to deal with that.”

During the Q&A, the panel offered their advice to the Obama administration.

Jelen said, “We’re investing in human capital, not just so that I can have a nice life, but it is somehow tied to the wellbeing of the nation. That sense of shared purpose is something that I think really needs to be maintained, and it wont be easy.”

Wood said, “I think he should think about his federal court nominees.”

Parker suggested the president-elect clean up foreign policy, while Pirages suggested he pay special attention to energy policy.

Tamadonfar added, “We have to do new things. The same old stuff isn’t working. It’s the same thing with foreign policy.”

Finally, Fernandez said, “I would recommend that he take on health care, maybe later on. Whatever policy he implements, the public’s not going to understand it and it’s probably not going to have an effect.”

“If he thinks he can tackle it in any successful way, well, God bless him if he can.”