Slashdot Mirror
'World of Warcraft' Candidate For Maine State Senate Wins Election
Teancum writes "Colleen Lachowicz, candidate for the State Senate District 25 of Maine, won the election yesterday against her opponent Thomas Martin. This race was notable in part because her World of Warcraft character that was mentioned earlier on Slashdot, where the Maine Republican Party turned her game playing into a significant issue. It is also notable that she was able to raise a total of $6,300 in campaign contributions from gamers who came to her defense in her successful campaign. The Maine GOP even tried to block these contributions where Lachowicz was cleared of any wrong doing and the investigation was dropped."
FOR THE HOARDE
Apparently you can run the state of Maine from your parents basement.
...is apparently running for Senate. According to my sources, that's enough money to buy 4.8 million gold!
Fortunately she is very well qualified. It actually sets a nice precedent. Video game playing, as a hobby, should not reflect poorly on someones character or ability to hold a position of public office. From now on everyone will remember how this tactic backfired. Thank you Ms.Lachowicz.
I think it is funny that the Republicans demonized an activity that over 30 million Americans take part in.
http://www.vg247.com/2011/12/06/report-39-million-mmo-gamers-in-the-us-play-scifi-68-prefer-f2p/
Then again around 80 million Americans have smoked pot and they demonize that also.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Politician's need to learn about the Streisand effect. Had they never attacked her for playing world of world craft I'd of known nothing about her or even much cared. I'm sure this is true also for younger people in her state.
When they decide to attack her on this front they pretty much mobilized a larger portion of the young voter demographic for her than she would of otherwise gotten. Even though she herself brought it up the decision to attack her on this front brought it from being an irrelevant and kinda amusing factoid to front page news on many sites and news sources.
Admittedly, when this story first broke, I checked her Armory page, saw her Achievement Points (Low) and immediately knew her playing WoW was a non-issue.
The 50's were, assuming you were a white male of at least the "skilled working class" level of society, a great time. By feat of chance there was a conjunction of postwar prosperity, an entrepreneurial boom, and a government willing to invest in big things. It was a time when a man could, with a high school education, get a good job and support a family with a single income. For a good chunk of America it was a real golden age. It was also a time of tremendous racism, Cold War, and overt sexism, but those parts don't bother a lot of the more outer fringe of the right wing. There's several problems with trying to return to the 50's though.
First, the circumstances that created the incredible boom were not exactly pleasant. A good chunk of the reason for the insatiable consumer demand of the time was that the preceding decade and half had been dominated by war and depression... Eight years of not being able to afford anything followed by six years of not being able to get anything leaves people in the mood to spend. On top of that, the War had resulted in the creation or refinement of all kinds of new technology that people wanted to buy. People had money, both because they'd been saving during the War (when there was nothing to spend on), and because the boom created tons of jobs for them to come home to. It was a perfect storm of incredible pent up demand coinciding with equally incredible new products.
Second, and this is a real pisser, the government was a huge driver of the economy with spending in the 50's. Conservatives recall the social conservatism of the era, but for get the fact that government was a lot less afraid to spend money. Things like the Apollo project and the Interstate Highway project were hugely expensive government programs that employed tens or hundreds of thousands and pumped tons of money into suppliers and ancillary businesses. Sure, these were primarily Cold War defense or prestige projects, not "entitlement spending", but they were huge wealth redistribution engines regardless. They put a lot of money in the hands of working people.
We can't policy our way back to the 50's, they were a unique time with a unique set of very advantageous circumstances. Certainly we can't let our blinders tell us that all we gotta do is throw the women back in the kitchen, the gays back in the closet, and blacks back in the ghetto to bring them back. Those were the downsides of the 50's not the cause of the upsides. We can, perhaps, try to bring back some of the big government projects that helped drive the economy, but we'll need more tax revenue to do it (taxes were considerably higher by percentage in the 50's), and even with that we won't be able to manufacture the kind of boom caused by postwar euphoria and pent up demand. Looking to the past for inspiration to solve problems is one thing, but you can't ever bring it back.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/12/us/entitlement-map.html?ref=us
I've seen a few maps that show that there are considerably higher number of government aid recipients in areas that tend to lean red.
Further, I take offense to the idea that these people would rather "do it themselves". It sounds a lot more like "I got mine, so don't tax me to get yours". Those people got public education. Many went to colleges that received up to 70-80% of their operating funds from the state (most now receive closer to 15%). Public infrastructure was built in a very short time. Many of these individuals are receiving social security and medicare, something "they paid into and deserve" but they don't want to take any cuts or pay any higher taxes to make sure these programs remain solvent for the next generation who are also paying into it. They got to take advantage of the fact that hospitals would treat them even if they couldn't afford the bill, something the state picks up the cost for.
I understand trying to make sure these programs are run efficiently. But, the debate in the last 1-2 years has been a lot more about cutting than reforming. And a lot more about making sure our historically low taxes are never raised to pay for the things the baby boomers have already taken advantage of.