Stranger in town
Hillary Clinton’s Senate run
disruptive to political system
Hillary Rodham Clinton goes to Arkansas, then to
Washington, now to New York. Next, she’ll probably be run
ning for prime minister of Canada.
Hillary Clinton’s announcement to run for the Senate in
New York comes to no one’s surprise, but it comes much to
our dismay.
>We aren’t mad that she’s furthering her career in politics -
go Hil! But she’s doing it in a way that undermines the
American political system.
Sure, it should be legal to do what she’s doing. As citizens
of the United States, we retain the right to move freely from
state to state and become a resident of a new area.
Hillary is taking this most fundamental of rights inherent
to a republic and completely skewing it to her desires. What
she’s doing is an example of a terrible trend in American pol
itics. If wealthy political insiders continue traveling from state
to state to get eledted, our electoral system will decay further
than it already has.
How would we like it if someone moved to Nebraska just
to get elected, saying he or she is all about our struggles?
Of course we wouldn’t like it,
Hillary is but we wouldn’t stop there. We
would kick that person out of our
taklflg trllS state and tell him never to come
back. We would say that a get
nflOSl elected-wherever-I-can philoso
fundamental phy doesnt belong in our state'
junuumeruui And tha,.s what New York
of rieh ts needs to do with Hillary.
^ ° She can name the state flower
inherent to a on Letterman, she can go door
to-door in the Hamptons and
republic ana stand on a stage with a congress
I I man from Harlem, but it doesn’t
Completely make her a New Yorker.
ilcewina it tn “*new to the nei8h
snewing U to borhood,” she said at her
her desires ” announcement, “but I’m not new
l ’ to your concerns.”
What a complete load of
political garbage. She pays lip '
service to tabloid-reading New Yorkers, is surrounded by
New York liberals and doesn’t care one bit about the state of
New York.
Someone must have mispronounced Hillary’s “Rodham”
as “Rodman” and confused her. Basketball’s Dennis simply
travels from state to state, looking for the place that will give
him the most money, fame, glory and power.
And that’s what Hillary is: a political Rodman, minus the
nose rings.
Editorial Board
Josh Funk (editor) • J.J. Harder • Cliff Hicks • Samuel
McKewon • Dane Stickney • Kimberly Sweet • Lindsay
Young
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Obermeyer’s
VIEW
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DANCING-BgARS?
i—
Fools rush in
Ask hard questions before popping the big one
I can’t sleep. I roll around on my
bed, but my demons chase and catch
me.
“Michael, you are just afraid of
commitment!” my now-ex-girlfriend
screams as she storms out of my resi
dence hall room and slams the door.
(Bang!)
“You’re never getting married,
Mike. You’re just too picky!”
I jump out of bed, wide awake and
sweating profusely. Ideas like divorce,
commitment and broken marriage
dance in my head like so many sugar
plums.
More marriage proposals occur on
Valentine’s Day than any other day of
the year, and we are only seven long
days away. To those thinking of matri
mony, I give the same advice as I would
to a man on the roof of a downtown
parking garage, threatening to jump.
Don’t do it unless you’re really sure.
What’s love got to do with it
A recent survey found only four
percent of college students in America
would be willing to get married without
romantic love. Assuming our first pre
requisite for marriage is love, how do
we know when we are in love? Is it like
the Supreme Court says about obsceni
ty - you just know it Mien you see it?
One piece of advice I received
when I asked a woman how she knew
she was in love was, “When he walks in
the room, my heart skips a beat.” I
replied that I knew three women who
had this effect on me. “Maybe you
should move to Utah then,” was her
response.
I do think people should be in love
before they get married. Unfortunately
I don’t think I can define the term. Let
me pull out my dictionary. Here we are,
“A deep tender feeling of affection and
solicitude toward a person.” Solicitude?
Weird word, good idea. The truth is we
all need our own definition of love, and
if you have one that works, more power
to you.
Staying single an option
Nowadays, two-thirds of women in
the 20-to-24 age range have never been
married. That percentage has doubled
since 1970. So, as a generation, we are
waiting longer to get married. And
that’s a good thing. People our age
should wait.
What do we know about the people
we date? Are they going to be success
ful in life? What kind of parents will
they make? Shouldn’t we have the
answers to these questions before we
forever link our lives to someone? Yes,
we should. Of course we can’t wait for
ever, but for my money, I would like to
see how a person handles life in the
“real world,” and not the show on MTV
before I buy.
Divorce a reality
We can’t afford to fall into the it
will-never-happen-to-me trap. The
divorce rate is 10 times higher than it
was a century ago, and about half of us
will experience the big D in our life
times. Personally, this is my biggest rea
son for waiting to get hitched. My par
ents have been married nearly 35 years
and, if at all possible, I would like to
pull this off myself.
As I see it, the biggest factor here is
picking the right spouse, and I don’t
want to be rash. Maybe I’m a little
abnormal; okay, that’s, a definite, but
one of the first things I look for in a
relationship and eventual marriage is
stability. Not, “Can I be happy when I
look at this person” or “Is she going to
look like her mother,” but “Can I live
with this person for 80 years?” The my
needs-first attitude is the worst byprod
uct of American culture. We have to
make sure we see the bigger picture.
Policy can’t save marriage
Though I wrongly have been
accused of being a liberal from time to
time, the government cannot help
strengthen marriage and the family.
Rises in divorce and the general weak
ening of the family have occurred since
the ’60s, despite government spending
in this area, which has increased five
fold. The only person that can increase
the chances of your marriage working
is you.
Big decision merits thought
I have thought of marriage three
times in my life. The first was when I
graduated from high school. The sec
ond was when I left the military to
attend this great university (no sarcasm
here). And strangely enough, this col
umn appears as I prepare to depart col
lege.
Is it a coincidence that I have sought
stability when major life changes were
on the horizon? Probably not So, to all
my good brothers and sisters in the
audience, if you are thinking of propos
ing, or accepting a proposal, next
Monday on Valentine’s Day -don’t do
it! Ifit’s a good decision now, it will still
be a good decision in a year.
Michael Donley is a senior sociology major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
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