Just Got This Email from the University Administration

Way to go Columbia! I will do a separate post about TurboVote and Project Vote Smart later. Go Columbia! This is informative and awesome.
______________________________________________________________________________________


Dear Columbia Students,



Registering to vote is the most straightforward way to engage in the democratic process. Some of you may already be registered in your home districts or here in New York. If not, please note that you are allowed to vote here in New York County if you have been a resident for at least 30 days. New York State voter registration forms are available in the Government & Community Affairs office, Low Library Room 309.



If you prefer to vote in your home district, TurboVote is a tool that makes it easy to register and vote while away at college. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to submit your registration forms or absentee ballots on time and to remind your fellow students, friends, and family to do the same.



For a state by state listing of voter registration deadlines and requirements for both primary and general elections, please go to Project Vote Smart and select your home state from the voter registration drop down menu. Additional information about voter registration can be found on the Government and Community Affairs website.



For those who will be voting in New York, please be reminded that the New York Primary Election is September 13th.



We know that voter turnout increases when young people urge other young people to vote. Whatever your voting preference, we hope that Columbia students will do their part to increase turnout in 2012 by making their voices heard come November 6.



Sincerely,



Maxine Griffith, AICP

Executive Vice President

for Government & Community Affairs

and Special Advisor, Campus Planning

Columbia University

Today In Voter Suppression (and Gerrymandering and Racism)

Benjamin Jealous speaking at SIPA

I am going to quote heavily from this Salon.com article, in part because it is thorough and well written but moreover because I am so angry after reading it that I am having trouble forming coherent sentences. The deliberate and systematic racial discrimination described in the article is exactly what NAACP President, Benjamin Jealous, was talking about when I heard him speak about voting rights and discrimination last spring. This is from his speech:

“Historically, efforts at voter suppression have always been about suppressing issues of equality and social justice...Protecting the vote and ending racial profiling are actually the same thing. The disproportionate incarceration of the black community and voter suppression are exactly the same thing.”

I've already posted a little about his speech (which moved me to tears, not an easy feat), but just now found the video, which should be required watching for anyone interested in voting rights. Jealous mostly focuses on incarceration as it pertains to voting rights, but the points he makes about the link between racism and voter suppression are extremely relevant to the Salon article, which chronicles five ways that the Texas Legislature is targeting Latino and African American voters. Excerpts from the article:

1. Lawmakers drew some districts that looked like Latino majority districts on paper — but removed Latinos who voted regularly and replaced them with Latinos who were unlikely to vote.

In the redistricting case, a panel of three federal judges found that Texas lawmakers had intentionally created districts that would weaken the influence of Latino voters, while appearing to satisfy the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. [Nancy note: Consider the level of cunning that had to be involved here. It actually offends my sensibilities.]

2. Lawmakers widened the gap between the proportion of the population that is Latino and African-Americans and the proportion of districts that are minority-controlled.

In the years leading up to the 2010 census, Texas’ population increased by 4.3 million people, 65 percent of them Latino. As a result, Texas gained four seats in Congress.

In their decision, the federal judges in the redistricting case noted that minority voters have no constitutional right to proportional representation. But the Voting Rights Act says states can’t weaken the electoral power of minorities. So, the judges reasoned, if there is already a gap between the minority population of a state and its political representation, states can’t let that gap grow wider.

3. Texas removed economic centers and district offices from African-American and Latino districts, while giving white Republicans perks.

In defending its new maps, Texas argued that the districts had been shaped to help Republicans and hurt Democrats — a perfectly legal tactic — and that race had been irrelevant to its choices. [Nancy note: WHAT? As if that's fine but keep going]

[Three protesting members of Congress] and African-American Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, all Democrats, also testified that their district offices were drawn out of their districts — a detriment because constituents want easily accessible district offices.

“No such surgery was performed on the districts of Anglo incumbents,” the judges found. “In fact, every Anglo member of Congress retained his or her district office.”

4. Divide and conquer: Texas “cracked” minority voters out of one district into three.

Lawmakers reshaped the district in a way that “cracked the politically cohesive and geographically concentrated Latino and African American communities,” and placed those voters “in districts in which they have no opportunity to elect their candidates of choice.”

5. Texas passed a voter-ID law with requirements that would make it disproportionately difficult for African-Americans and Latinos to vote.

It's important to note that the Texas voter ID law will not be in effect for the November election.

I know about and understand greed and the desire to keep your party in power. I'm not saying that's good, but it is what it is. This seems to be to surpass partisan politics and fall into the categories of racist and unAmerican.

I don't like to use the word "evil" when it comes to political issues. It implies a link between government and religion that I am not quite comfortable with. Besides, I want to believe that our leaders are motivated by good intentions no matter how misguided their choices are. But, it's really hard for me to come up with another word that fits this situation.

Of course I knew about all these phenomenon. I'd just never looked at them collectively while listening to Benjamin Jealous speak.

Reeling from this,

-Nancy

Back to School and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem

School starts tomorrow, and (hold your applause) I have already done my reading for the week! Basically all the courses I am taking are voting and elections related (hooray!) which makes me more excited to start the semester than I otherwise would be. In doing my reading I was reminded of one of my favorite lessons from last year, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, and I thought I would share it with you!

Arrow's Theorem basically points out that aggregate voter preferences should be transitive, but they are not. Consider this scenario. We have three voters and three candidates, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and a chair. The voters prefer the candidates in the following order:

Voter 1: Obama>Romney>Chair
Voter 2: Chair>Obama>Romney
Voter 3: Romney>Chair>Obama

Individual voter preferences are transitive, meaning that if I would rather vote for Obama than Romney and would rather vote for Romney than a chair, then I would rather vote for Obama than a chair as well.

If the chair were not running, Obama would win since 2/3 of the voters prefer Obama to Romney. Similarly if Obama were to get fed up and drop out ,Romney would win since 2/3 of the voters prefer Romney to chair. Since Obama beats Romney and Romney beats chair, it stands to reason that Obama could beat a chair as well, but not so! If Romney were to drop out, the chair would win since 2/3 of the voters prefer the chair to Obama.

Arrow's Theorem is used by proponents of alternative voting systems (for example those where voters weight their preferences) to show that no rank order or majority voting system can accurately reflect the "will of the people."

Another Year Older and Shockingly, Wiser.

A year ago, I shared with you what amounted to my Dear John letter to campaigns. I reflected on everything that campaigns had given me and the reasons I felt I needed to take a break. So at the precipice of my second and final year of graduate school (and likely my final year away from campaigning) I had to ask myself: Was it worth it? Am I accomplishing my goals? Am I on the road to what I set out to do? My answer is resoundingly "Yes."

When I worked on campaigns full time, I kept telling myself "when I'm in the same place for a while," "when I have free time." Before campaigns, I was in college and coping with health problems that provided me (however legitimately) with similar scapegoats. Moving to New York meant taking on a huge amount of responsibility that I had been delaying for years. Time to take care of myself means that I actually have to take care of myself, even when I would rather eat junk food, avoid going to the doctor or leave clothes on the floor. Time for relationships means putting myself out there without the campaign caveats of being too tired, too busy and too far away. The unfettered opportunity to reach for my goals also means the possibility of failing, on my own with no excuses. Fear is the fact that what you want is a real possibility.

What I've really longed for the past few years, much more than weight loss or a boyfriend, was stability. I didn't want to be thirty and running around the country not sleeping or knowing when or where my next job would be. What I feared was that nothing but that lifestyle could satisfy me and that I would be forever stuck between those two worlds. One of my best friends describes people with that kind of passion and intensity as fire. When you're in control, you're a campfire. You create glow, warmth and inspiration. People are drawn to you. When you're not in control you're like a four alarm, unpredictable and destructive. I spent the last year learning how to be a campfire, terrified that the only options were to spend the rest of my life burning through things or put the fire out. Here's what I know how to do now that I didn't before:

1) I quit things and I change direction. I spent some time on awful mismanaged campaigns where my work and passion was unappreciated. Same goes for friendships, boyfriends, really anything in which I had invested time and effort. My friends and family didn't understand why I didn't just leave, but quitting seemed anathema. It seemed like admitting failure to leave something or change my mind about what my goals were. It would mean that my investment was wasted. I learned a lot from sticking it out on bad campaigns and less than ideal relationships. There's no doubt that that was what I needed to do at the time. What I know now is that there is a way to take value from something while admitting that it no longer works.

2) I'm getting better with uncertainty. Part of my intensity is that I've always tended to see things in black and white. As Heidi Klum would say "you are either in or you are out." When I was deciding whether to go back to school or go on a campaign, I contacted a friend who has been in and out of campaigns for the past decade. His advice was "whatever you decide, it won't be the last time you have this conversation with yourself." It sounds simple enough, but it never really occurred to me that it was okay to not know when and whether I would go back. One thing I've learned this year is that every choice and every relationship is an ongoing conversation. It's okay not to know where things will end up.

3) I accept people for what they're capable of right now. On campaigns, we're taught to ask the most from people and expect them to rise to the occasion. This is a good and effective management technique, but it's a recipe for failure in your personal life. I've been guilty of holding the people around me to the high standards to which I hold myself and coming to some pretty harsh conclusions. "This friend wasn't there for me when I wanted her to be, therefore she must not care enough about me." As opposed to, "I know this person cares about me, but she wasn't able to be there when I needed her. I wonder what's going on with her." Even when this line of logic causes me to end a relationship, especially a romantic one, I can do so with much more peace and clarity.

4) I identify what I want. I'm not a big fan of the "Law of Attraction" because I think the concept that people bring things like death or disease upon themselves through their thoughts is some new jack bullshit. But I do think that there is something to putting your intentions out into the universe. When you really whittle down what it is that you want, you may not attract new opportunities into your life but you recognize them when they come. It's like when you learn a new word: Once it's in your head you start seeing and hearing it everywhere. When considering why I was so tempted to take time off and go back on a campaign even though I had explicitly decided not to do so, I realized that more than gaining experience or electing good candidates, it was important to me to contribute to the campaign community. Since then, I have been honored to have my blog and tumblr become a mainstay of many campaign offices. Through my blogging, I was invited to lead a volunteer recruitment training for several hundred people, a long time dream of mine. My blog and tumblr already existed, but since I clarified for myself what I wanted I was able to steer them in that direction.

5) I don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. One of the factors that kept me making excuses about things like weight loss and cleaning is that when I set a goal, I tend to pursue it obsessively and relentlessly. As a lifelong mess maker saying "I'm going to keep my apartment clean" felt too daunting. I couldn't imagine never again leaving clothes on the floor or dishes in the sink, but I also couldn't imagine committing to do something and then accepting less than 100% from myself. It doesn't take a masters degree to realize that that approach to self-improvement is unsustainable. Without campaigns to channel my manic and obsessive tendencies, I've had to learn to be okay with deciding to keep my apartment cleaner rather than spotless or eating pizza in the larger context of trying to lose weight.

I guess that's why I'm able to deem this year a success despite so much disappointment. Do I still miss campaigns? Yes. Have I found a way to be happy without them? Not entirely. Will I break these rules and make choices that bring me from campfire to four alarm territory? Absolutely. But for the first time in my life, I'm okay with that. I'm looking forward to a year with just as much learning, but more happiness.


Thanks for sharing this last year with me,

Nancy

Gosling goes Campaignsick

So in case you haven't heard, which is unlikely if you follow this blog, I made a Campaign Staff Ryan Gosling tumblr.

Various Gosling memes have been traveling the internet for weeks now, but I was particularly inspired when my classmate, Kelsey Keech created one for our public policy school.

Really, how could I have not done this before? It combines three of my favorite things: campaigns, puns, and off color humor! (Shirtless men talking about campaigns and puns are not half bad either.) Anyway the thing went viral. It was even shouted out by New Organizing Institute and VAN!

I got a reminder of the creativity and wit of my fabulous cohorts. Campaign people are some of the best and funniest people in the world! Here are some of my favorite posts:

You can get to the full tumblr by clicking on "Hey Girl" at the top of the page.


Peace, Love, and Walklists,
Nancy

Type E (Or Breaking Up is Hard to Deux)

Nota bene: Don't ever tell me not to do something. I was at brunch with my family yesterday when my Grandmother asked me "You don't write anything personal on your blog, do you?" Personal? That's hard to say. I once compared a candidate to an abusive boyfriend. I wrote an entry in which I literally broke up with campaigns and in doing so covered a fair amount of my animate romantic relationships as well. It was a difficult question to answer, because for me the political has always been extremely personal. "No but I mean you don't write 'I went out with someone the other night and I went to bed with him.'" Of course not...

If you read my blog or talk to me ever, you know that I struggle with separating elections from who I am. When I look at what I've accomplished and the person I am today, ambitious, driven, relentless, meticulous, passionate, it's hard for me to divine what traits I brought to campaigns versus what traits campaigns have given me. These days, when I find myself approaching a group project with "campaign mentality" I have to step back and wonder if it's really a "Nancy mentality" that's just used to having a more appropriate outlet.

All this would be an academic exercise if I weren't at a point in my life where I have to make some choices. Around my twenty fifth birthday I got this sinking feeling that I didn't know where my life was going. My friends were getting engaged, joining law firms and buying houses. I was in a relationship with an undergrad, didn't know if and where I'd be working in six weeks, and was squatting on peoples couches. Organizing is the only job I can think of where at twenty five you can credibly say, "I'm too old for this shit."

Now I've just turned twenty seven and, as I do at every milestone, am forced to look back and take what one of my sorority sisters refers to as "mental stock." Besides teaching me a lot and giving me the leg up I need in my career, graduate school provides a woolly cocoon from which to assess the direction my life is headed. I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to get where I want to be professionally. This blog is part of that and Columbia has allowed me to make some great connections to get me where I need to go. Romantically...not so much. Part of the problem is that you can't control other people's emotions and you can't create chemistry. The search for Mancy will not be solved by a google spreadsheet or by phone banking all the age appropriate gentlemen on the Upper West Side. (JVAN?) But there's another problem: I think I have a "thing" about elections. (That's elections with an "l.")

So I met this boy (sorry, Grandma). He used to work on campaigns and I went out with him the night before my birthday. Things did not work out, but it got me thinking, I only ever really like boys who have worked on elections. When I worked on campaigns, that wasn't so strange. Those were the only people I met. The fact that it's been true the past two years as well, kind of scary.

My friends used to joke with me that I had a thing for fat, tall, nerdy guys. This "slow, sweaty parade" as one friend put it can be easily traced back to my first boyfriend in college. Maybe we just incorporate what we're used to into our taste in significant others. It's also natural to seek out people who share your values. All things being equal, I would prefer to date a Jewish guy and elections are just as integral to who I am. However, while there is no shortage of heighty, chubby men who can fix a computer, and Jewish men abound where I come from, there are significantly fewer men who live in New York City and have worked on elections. More over, the same reasons I broke free from campaigns are the reasons I need a similar split from campaign boys.

Dating campaign boys is like dating my own id. I recently learned that men and women's brains are actually structured differently. Women have webbed brains which allow us to plan, to form relationships and see patterns. For a women everything is interrelated. That's why when I take stock of my life I consider my job as it relates to my relationships as they relate to my health, etc. Men do not have webbed brains, which allows them to be decisive and to compartmentalize.You know the Nancepaign vision I was talking about earlier? The intensity with which I approach a project? Multiply that times 1,000. And, (more information from Women in Power Class) men tend to prioritize the straight forward reward system of a job, where as women find more reward in relationships. Which generally means super intense time spent together, followed by me being totally ignored for work I while I perpetually reload my text messages and try to apply my organizing skills to a problem I can't control.

Why am I sharing this with you? Is campaignsick becoming a live journal? Decidedly, no. First, because campaignsick is life through a campaign lens, and this is a real part of my life. Second, and more importantly, if its bothering me its probably bothering someone else. I've spent a lot of time this semester thinking about women and power in the workplace, thanks to an incredible course I'm taking. One thing that keeps coming up in every class is how to balance an intense career about which you are passionate with life, family and relationships. Until recently the dilemma of "having it all" was taboo. Our Professor noted that it was more common for men to have pictures of their children on their desks than for women, since having a family to take care of on top of a career was perceived as a weakness, while women who chose not to have children were perceived as cold or odd.

One of those interrelated career/personal goals I'm pursuing is to be a role model for women who are unabashedly opinionated, especially in politics. It's hard for professional women to tell the truth about what we want in our lives without being criticized as weak or needy, but it's even harder to get what you want if you're not willing to say it. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen of campaignsick, ISO Mancy. It's gonna be tough to find someone to keep up with me though. After all, I have a pretty baller career going on, not to mention incredible classmates and coworkers to share it with.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do...

Press Play.

This won't work now the way it once did, cause I want to decide between survival and bliss.Now I know who I'm not,I don't I still don't know who I am, but I know I won't keep on playing the victim.These precious illusions in my head did not let me down when I was defenseless and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends.

Not counting the Edwards campaign, I've had my heart broken three times and been broken up with twice. The first time, I decided to join the CIA. I fell in love with campaigning during my security clearance and never looked back. The second time, I went on another campaign. The third time, I decided it was time to apply to grad school and a year and a half later, here I am.

Within two weeks, I will sign a lease in New York City. In a month, I will have started school. I will cook for myself. I will sleep regular hours. When I do date it will be with more intention than I have been lately. I feel like I'm signing a contract to become an adult.

I feel like I'm breaking up with campaigns. Intellectually I've known it was over for months. That's why I started this blog. In practice I haven't worked on a race since November and that was only for a few weeks. But the option was still there. I could have picked up and driven to Wisconsin on a moment's notice. And now, not.

More than anyone I've ever dated, campaigns have been the love of my life. They were there for me when boys weren't. They were there for me when I was sick. They challenged me, they helped me find a sense of purpose. They have become a huge part of how I define myself. They've been my crutch and my security blanket. As Alanis would say, parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends.

Still, for all the things I'm losing, I might as well resign myself to try and make a change. What alcohol is to Homer Simpson, campaigns have been to Nancy Leeds: the cause and the solution of all life's problems. I've met the plurality of people I've dated while working on campaigns. Campaigns have given me solace after a break up, but they've also made it impossible for me to have a viable long-term relationship. They've been both a way to take my mind off sickness and the source of my least healthy habits. They've provided an endless source of excitement and a gaping lack of stability.

I once heard a This American Life in which Starlee Kine asks her ex-boyfriend why she's always the one being broken up with and he replies "because you never leave first." This isn't the first unhealthy relationship I've been in, but since campaigns can't leave me, it's the first one in which I've had to do the breaking. When you're really in love, I think it's a bigger burden to be the breaker than the breakee. You'll never quite know what could have been and if you wind up regretting it you only have yourself to blame. In a way it's almost brave. You're giving up something you know can be good for the promise of something better.

I looked around, thought about what I want in my life and realized that,for me, the campaign lifestyle wasn't sustainable. I'm proud that I had the courage and the wisdom to make that decision but that doesn't mean there's nothing to mourn.

I could say maybe in a couple years, who knows what will happen, but I don't want to lead myself on. In three years we both will have changed so much we'll barely recognize each other. When I do become involved again, it will be in a totally different capacity. I'm hoping we'll still be friends, but that's gonna be hard without falling back in. Maybe I'll find somewhere to volunteer once I've licked my wounds a little.

So yeah, I'm listening to wistful music. I'm trying out a new look (contacts). I'm surrounding myself with friends during the transition. You know, keeping busy. I may even go down to DC and recruit some of my former bro-workers to wax nostalgic with me before the big move. Typical break up stuff.

Field Organizing has been my constant companion since I graduated college. I'm sad and slightly afraid of losing my defense mechanism. I'm going to miss campaigns tremendously. I'm excited to start the next chapter in my life, but I'm going to feel this one for a long time. It's become a part of me and that's okay. That's good. That's how you know it was worth it.

Better to have loved and lost,
Nancy

Thinking of Grad School?

Me too. In fact, it's consuming my life. Well, right now I am procrastinating by letting myself become obsessed over the things I wish I had done differently in this process. Though this isn't strictly campaign related, I do think that some of these regrets come from my having chosen a non-traditional career path. So I figured, as I often do, that I would try to give you the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.

Here is some advice I wish someone had given me in preparation for the grad school application process.

1) Take some classes. Even though my programs don't require me to post-bac, I wish I had done this anyway. A lot of public policy and business programs require strong quantitative skills and although we all know where these come into play on a campaign, it's less obvious to others and scoring well in a math or econ class could solve that. In addition, if your grades weren't great in college, as mine were not, it gives you an opportunity to prove that you've matured. Finally if you've been out of school for a while, it's an opportunity to cultivate an academic reference, and one who is more experienced in writing letters of recommendation than your campaign colleagues are likely to be, which brings me to number 2...

2) Give your references plenty of warning, and coaching. You should probably do this anyway, but it goes double if your references are campaign folk. Asking these people to write a reference in October of an election year is far from ideal. You don't want to miss out on a reference who knows you well because they don't have time and you don't want them to do a rushed job. In addition, your friends and colleagues are probably unfamiliar with the application process so it useful to give them plenty of coaching about writing a good recommendation. Talk to admissions officers about what they are looking for in an application and then use your recs to highlight your strengths with specific examples and to help address any holes.

3) Start your applications early, not just the essay. I made this mistake with my early applications. I spent weeks writing answers to the long essay questions, but had not considered what I would include in my resume, what if anything, I would write about having been sick in college in the portion where they ask if there is any additional information the admissions committee should know, and how long it would take to track down and upload my transcripts in the proper format. Ideally I would fill all of these out ahead of time, and have uploading my final essays as the last step.

4) Visit the campus. Trying to distinguish between schools from their websites and viewbooks is kind of like online dating- you won't get a real feel for them until you meet them in person. Undergraduate institutions have distinct personalities and so do their graduate counterparts. Not only will pre-application visits save you time and money on applying to places you wouldn't actually want to go, they will help you get a feel for the culture of the school and thus what to include in your application.

5) Be able to make an argument for why you need your degree. I like to joke that I have a PhD in Campaign Management from the school of hard knocks, and yet here I am pursuing not one, but two masters. I was actually good about this one. I thought long and hard about what I wanted out of a graduate degree and which programs fit my career goals before I began to apply. If you can't explain to yourself why you need a degree from that institution to achieve your goals, then how can you explain it to the school? The more specific the better.

I'm looking forward to sharing my personal statement with you. Ideally, after having been accepted.

With campaign love and grad school ambitions,
Nancy

Mistakes were made

Working on grad school applications I encountered the question "What did you learn from a mistake?"

Immediately, my mind jumped to Iowa. All kinds of mistakes. Where to begin? Let's start with thinking John Edwards could have beaten Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the first place (for the record, we actually DID beat Hillary in Iowa.) Then there was Elizabeth Edwards' decision to allow her husband to run while she had cancer and after having cheated on her.

I remember vividly working on a Superman style JRE poster with a coworker and proudly presenting it to Mrs. Edwards. Can you imagine working on your husband's Presidential campaign sick, cheated on, having to talk about how great he is EVERY day and then two idealistic twenty year olds presenting you with a poster extolling him as superhuman? There are A LOT of things for which I feel Elizabeth Edwards and her estranged husband owe me an apology, but for this one, I'm sorry.

Then there were the mistakes made by others on the campaign. I won't go into them here (although they are in my essay) except to say I learned a lot about how NOT to treat my staff by example.

But regardless of what anyone else did, the biggest mistakes were made by me. Yes the chips were stacked against us politically, and I was met with a lot of unnecessary adversity from so called activists and colleagues, but I still had control over my own reactions, and I failed. I was nasty to my coworkers, whether they deserved it or not, disrespectful to my higher ups, whether they deserved it or not, and all around a stick in the mud.

I think maybe the greatest irony of this new chapter of my life is the way that I remember things. Things that I know once made me happy, I have trouble remembering fondly. Yet when I look back at Iowa, a pastime that for months afterward could cause me to burst out crying, I now have this wave of nostalgia. I made some of my best friends there. Some of my best stories happened there. I learned a lot about myself and about campaigns and in a very real way I grew up in that single year more than any other.

Looking back, I wish I hadn't taken myself too seriously to enjoy it.

One late night in Iowa I was on the phone with the first friend I ever made on campaigns, both of us frustrated, downtrodden and a little indignant at our predicament. He asked, as we often asked each other, "why do we do this to ourselves?" and I thought of the Howard Hughes quote "passion will drive you crazy, but is there any other way to live?"

Now if only I could explain this to an admissions board.

Mea Culpa.

-Nancy