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JerseySmarts.com

Obama’s Hope on College Affordability

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President Obama gave his first address to the Congress last night and he addressed a variety of topics. The one topic that piqued my interest was his discussions about education and higher education specifically. Higher education affordability for all Americans is one of my major issues as a voter so I thought I’d offer some comments here. The text from Obama’s speech:

I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country – Senator Edward Kennedy.

You know – that’s a very inspiring thought and a good idea. I wonder about how realistic it is in action, though. For example, what will the cost be to the government if High School Student A volunteers X amount of hours in his or her hometown and thus meets the requirements of this program? Will the government pay all of their tuition at a public school? Half? A quarter? What is the number that makes college affordable for a student?

Further, what happens if High School Student B – who is from a better off family than Student A – does the same amount (or more) of volunteering than Student A? Since Student B is from a well-to-do family, then does he or she get anything for their community service? The same end was achieved – citizens served their community. Right?

And what happens when High School Student C needs another 50 hours of community service by the deadline date to qualify for whatever this grant money will be? Are we to believe that if Student C’s family knows people who know people that they won’t write-up false letters showing all of the service hours that Student C volunteered?

I don’t want to sound like a negative guy on this proposal, but it seems like it’s a bit too nebulous right now. I’m all for college affordability so long as 1) it is a program with no discrimination (income included), and 2) it’s fiscally responsible. We didn’t get that information last night. Other than that, I thought the President’s speech sounded more like a campaign speech than anything else, but I had no major fundamental problems with it.

Building a Third Party Base at the Local Level

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Over the last few days I’ve posted some information about a third party in the 2008 election – the Constitution Party. I’m just putting this information out there because I really believe that third parties are railroaded by the mainstream media and that America needs a strong third party to challenge the Democrats and Republicans. But as I look at these parties, I begin to wonder why they don’t start smaller and use more aggressive tactics.

For example, I’ve been looking at the voter results in my hometown of Mount Arlington (obsessively so). The Constitution Party received 2 votes in my hometown out of a total of 2,536 votes case. Repeat: they received 2 votes. Honestly, that’s not too bad! Mount Arlington isn’t too big and for a third party to pull any votes is impressive. Write-ins received 14 votes, Ralph Nader had 13, the Libertarians had 5 votes, the list goes on. In total, third parties received 41 votes or 1.6% of the vote.

Again, that’s not totally bad in this type of election, but if the third parties want to do better then they should be building a stronger base at the local level. For example, there were 4,387 votes cast for the Mount Arlington Borough Council (you get to cast two votes, which means a total of 5,072 votes could have been cast – some voters obviously chose not to vote for Borough Council or only cast one vote). I have to imagine that if a third party really wants to make an impact, they would spend a good deal of time and money at the lowest level of government and try to win these smaller elections. You win the local election for Mayor or Town Council or whatever, prove that your policies work at the local level, then try to expand to other local municipalities or to the county level (depending where you are in the United States).

The Republicans won in Mount Arlington and from what I can see, they’ve done a fine job of leading. They were handed the short end of the stick thanks to Governor Money Bags’ new anti-small town policies, but they’re managing. That said, their leading candidate received 24.34% of the votes cast. A third party should be able to meet that percentage if they wage a good campaign.

Or maybe there are other reasons why third parties aren’t making it in America. If I were running a third party, I’d choose a few small towns across America and use them as examples for why my party should be elected to higher offices. Hell, I’d even look at taking in disenfranchised members of the Republicans or Democrats and use them as the candidates for my party! Why not use those folks who already have name recognition and some type of rapport with the public?

But I would do more. I would hold voter registration drives and be sure to get those people who have never registered or never thought of registering. Go door to door if necessary and have unregistered voters fill out a voter registration form at the same time as they fill out an absentee ballot request. Put them on that perpetual absentee ballot program and tell them that it means they can literally vote from home – so long as they drop the ballot in the mail in time. If it’s legal (and I don’t know if it is), drop them some simple, uncomplicated campaign propaganda. Get them a button or a bumper sticker or something.

It just seems to me that third parties aren’t utilizing these very simple tactics in order to take a foothold at the smallest levels of American society. Again, maybe they are doing these things in places other than New Jersey and I don’t see it, but I have to think that third parties could be doing a better job of getting the word out about their existence and their platforms.

Considering All Absentee Ballot, All the Time

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Being a political junkie, I tend to troll over a variety of websites looking for the latest and greatest information on local, state, and national politics. While looking over the Morris County Clerk’s website I stumbled onto the Civilian Absentee Ballot Application. Reading through the information on the pre-application page and the application itself, I learned that I can choose to receive absentee ballots for all future general elections.

In other words, I can fill out this application and then always have a ballot sent to whatever address that I want so I can be sure to vote in whatever general election is upcoming. I had no idea that I could do this, but it sounds like a great idea!

Some of you may know that I rent an apartment in Tinton Falls which is about an hour and a half from my voting station in Mount Arlington. As such, Election Day always presents a logistical problem for me since I have to factor a three-hour drive into my schedule. Voting by absentee ballot would be much more efficient. Some additional research into the Morris County Clerk’s website shows that no one voted by absentee ballot in Mount Arlington during this year’s election. While that may seem suspect to some people, there were only some 2,493 votes cast in the entire Borough. To assume that there were no absentee ballots cast this year is not that far of a stretch.

However, the ability to have a perpetual absentee ballot is a great option for someone like me who is generally moving to a new place every few years. Sure, I intend to register in which ever municipality where I wind up purchasing a home, but that’s not coming any time soon. Plus, because I’m constantly reading up on the local news I might even be more aware of political issues going on in my hometown than some of the folks who are voting up there anyway!

When you think about it, the application of the perpetual absentee ballot is powerful. Unfortunately, there are some people who just do not want to go to the polling stations to cast their votes. Some might be hindered because of their jobs and others might be hindered because of their personal schedules. In New Jersey, where we do not have early voting, receiving an absentee ballot that has to be mailed in to the County Clerk’s Office some 7 days prior to the election may increase the possibility that more eligible voters will vote.

I’m going to look into this some more, but I’m strongly considering going to an all-absentee ballot, all the time setup for future general elections (school board and primary elections do not apply).