The last Politics on the PublicMind seminar was a final recap of the results of the most recent presidential election. With the assistance of Tricia Mueller, Director of the “Obama for President” campaign in New Jersey, and Rick Mroz, the New Jersey State Campaign Coordinator for McCain and Palin, the results were analyzed for their historical significance and impact on the future of this country. As always, the seminar was held in the Orangerie and was hosted by a prominent member of FDU’s own political science department, Bruce Peabody.

Both Mueller and Mroz hold significant experience in the field of politics. Both have first hand knowledge of the causes and effects for particular results of the election. By sharing their first hand knowledge with the FDU population, students, faculty and staff were given an opportunity to see how particular decisions made by both candidates and their committees affected the turnout the election.
Mroz and Mueller both focused on the comparison between the 2000 Presidential Election and the most recent election. Mroz focused on how in no other country in the world the government could have such a dramatic switch in power as the United States has just had. He focused on the extraordinary length of this campaign, which began for the McCain committee right after the 2004 election. He described how the results of this election were entirely up in the air, and not one person had any idea what the results of the election would be. Specifically focusing on McCain, Mroz stated that McCain had told him that “if I lose this election because I told people what I think, then so be it.” According to Mroz, McCain did not want the election to be controlled by the press and the falsities they have a habit of printing every election. He emphasized that McCain had realized that he had made some key errors, such as the speech in Philadelphia about the race issue that was so scrutinized during this election.

Mueller focused more on the campaigning aspect of this election, in which she focused on the tactics used by the Obama committee to ensure more voter turnout. She emphasized that in her campaigning throughout New Jersey the focus was more on a union movement and a more community based way of encouraging people to go out and vote. She was proud to state that the Obama campaign had been completely funded by small dollars and the people, which allowed the people to have a greater sense of ownership and activism within the campaign itself. Mueller felt that Obama had done an excellent job of staying on the message he initially stated, and he had a great sense of discipline when it came to campaigning tactics.

Her last emphasis was on the influence of new media on this election, which was the first election to really take advantage of the Internet and blogs. Mueller stated that she felt that the Internet had given the Obama campaign a clear advantage over the McCain committee, since statistically young voters tend to be more Democratic. Obama had especially emphasized his application on Facebook and the iPhone, in which people were given the ability to technologically interact with the candidate and his campaign committee.

MARIA DISPENZIERE
STAFF WRITER