The Pine Log

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Volume 93
Issue 18
Next Publication:
Monday, November 12, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
PINE LOG The
The Independent Voice of Stephen F. Austin State University
Page 6
Taylor Smith steps into
Jereal Scott’s shoes for
upcoming Lumberjack
Basketball season.
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By David J. Lynch and Mike Dorning
Courtesy of The Washington Post News
Service with Bloombert News
Unemployment is falling. The
housing market is rebounding.
Consumers are paying off their
debts. And the big banks are healthy.
The U.S. economy that earned President
Barack Obama a second term looks nothing
like the mess that he inherited four years
ago. Instead of shrinking and shedding
jobs, the country is growing at an annual
rate of 2 percent and businesses are hand-ing
out new paychecks at a monthly average
of 157,000 so far this year.
That doesn't mean the world's largest
economy is thriving. The United States has
been growing below its historical trend since
March, according to the three-month mov-ing
average of the Chicago Federal Reserve
Bank's National Activity Index, a blend of 85
indicators measuring employment, produc-tion,
housing and consumption.
Danger looms in the form of $607 billion
automatic spending cuts and tax increases
known as the fiscal cliff, scheduled to take
effect at the beginning of 2013. A simmer-ing
sovereign debt crisis that has sapped
Europe's commercial strength poses an-other
risk. Few economists, in any event,
expect a return to the robust growth of the
late 1990s, when median household income
rose for six consecutive years.
"The economy is OK right now, but there
are worries about potential headwinds next
year," said economist Chris Rupkey of the
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.
Obama's election victory Tuesday night
erases a question mark that has shad-owed
the economy all year while he and
Republican Mitt Romney, two candidates
with sharply divergent views of govern-ment's
appropriate role in the economy,
dueled for the presidency.
While the specifics of tax, spending and
regulatory policies remain to be written,
investors now at least know what direction
will be taken by the White House. Obama's
victory means renewed political pressure to
raise taxes on high-income individuals and
on investment income.
Though Republicans in Congress have
pledged to oppose tax increases, the presi-dent
will claim a fresh mandate to eliminate
the George W. Bush administration's tax
cuts for the wealthy and raise taxes on capi-tal
gains income.
Obama also is likely to fulfill campaign
promises to protect spending on infrastruc-
Obama wins re-election
By Katelynn Wiggins
Staff Writer
Five SFA students have been chosen to participate
in the Texas Legislative Internship Program (TLIP)
this spring in Austin.
TLIP is a program that assigns students to an in-ternship
in Austin that is in some way involved with
the Texas Legislature. They will live there for the
spring semester and earn nine hours of upper-level
political science credit.
“Students can hope to gain a wide range of ex-perience
because you get right in the middle of
the legislative process,” Dr. Ken Collier, TLIP cam-pus
coordinator, said in a previous interview. The
five students chosen to participate are Kristen Cade,
Emily Campbell, Karina Erickson, Jarrett Jackson and
Chelsea Rountree.
“I want to get into policy making, so (TLIP) is a
good place to start,” Cade said. Cade is a junior from
Duncanville. She is a political science major and
is mainly interested in international relations and
is involved in the School of Honors, World Politics
Club and Pi Sigma Alpha (the political science honor
society). After college Cade plans to attend graduate
school, get her doctorate and either teach or work on
defense policy making. Cade is excited to participate
in TLIP “for the experience.” If given the opportunity,
Cade would like to work on something to do with im-migration,
but would be happy with anything.
“I am using the internship to decide what I want
to do (after college),” Campbell said. Campbell is a
junior from Crandall, Texas. She is a political science
major and is interested in international relations as
well as political theory. Campbell is the president of
Pi Sigma Alpha and works at the AARC.
“I decided to do TLIP because I would get to work
directly with the legislature. It will give me the expe-rience
I need because I am interested in working on
campaigns (after college),” Erickson said. Erickson is
TLIP winners
to visit Austin
Election, page 2
By Chris Cillizza
Courtesy of The Washington Post News
Service with Bloombert News
President Barack Obama won a sec-ond
sweeping national victory Tuesday,
far exceeding the electoral vote expec-tations
that many had projected for
him and proving that the coalition that
he built in 2008 (young people, African-
Americans, Hispanics) is durable and
sustaining.
While his impressive victory makes
Obama the big winner of the night
(and, consequently, Mitt Romney the
big loser), there were plenty of other
bests — and worsts — from election
night.
Winners:
Women: Women comprised 53 per-cent
of the total national vote — as they
did in 2008 — and went for Obama by
11 points, a gender gap critical to his
victory. Female politicians — particu-larly
on the Democratic side — also had
a very good night. The Senate added
Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Tammy
Baldwin (Wis.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii)
and Heidi Heitkamp to its ranks while
re-electing potential 2016-ers Kirstin
Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Amy Klobuchar
(Minn.) In New Hampshire, women
ruled the day — electing a new gov-ernor
(Maggie Hassan) and two new
House Members (Carol Shea Porter and
Ann Kuster). Add Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R)
and Jeanne Shaheen (D) to that mix
and you have an all female congressio-nal
delegation from the Granite State.
Jim Messina, Joel Benenson and the
entire Obama senior strategic team:
Messina, the campaign manager, and
Benenson, the campaign's pollster, as
well as the rest of the Obama cam-paign's
top political aides, deserve
a massive amount of credit for what
they pulled off on Tuesday night. They
helped to re-elect a president with an
economic headwind the likes of which
few politicians would have been unable
to run into. They did so with an unwav-ering
belief that the race would be more
a choice about which of the two candi-dates
understood average voters' con-cerns
than a referendum on the presi-dent's
policies. They did so with mas-sive
infrastructure in swing states and
an unswerving commitment of time
(and lots and lots and lots) of money in
places like Virginia and Florida that few
people believed Obama could or would
win again in 2012. They did so by recre-ating
the demographic coalition — mi-norities,
women, young voters — that
many people said couldn't be recreated
after the 2008 election. Simply a strate-gic
master class from beginning to end.
Young voters: Long the butt of jokes
about their lack of participation in the
political process, the 18-29 year old set
made a major statement in the 2012
campaign. One of the most amazing
stats of the 2012 election is that young
voters made up a larger percentage of
the total electorate (18 percent in 2008,
19 percent in 2012) than they did four
years ago. And while Obama's margin
wasn't as large among that youthful age
group as it was four years ago, he still
2012 winners and losers, bests and
worsts revealed after election night
TLIP, page 2 Winners and losers, page 2
Courtesy of Google photos
Courtesy of Google photos
Courtesy of Google photos