Journal: 1-6

Diversity in a not so Divided State

     Last week, for some reason my question did not show up when I posted my blog. My question was: I wonder how negative campaigning will affect the polls of the Disctrict 7 Congress Race in a week. It's been a week and I've done my research. I was not able to find poll of the current election, however I did find past polls of Cantor winning every election since 2002 by a landslide.

Year	Election	Candidate	Votes	Percent
2008	general	Eric Cantor (R)	233,531	62.7%
		Anita Hartke (D)	138,123	37.1%
2006	general	Eric Cantor (R)	163,706	63.8%
		James Nachman (D)	88,206	34.4%
		W. Blanton (I)	4,213	1.6%
2004	general	Eric Cantor (R)	230,765	75.5%
		W. Blanton (I)	74,325	24.3%
2002	general	Eric Cantor (R)	113,658	69.4%
		Ben Jones (D)	49,854	30.5%

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=district-2010-VA-07

     I did some research on youtube for his past political ads and most of them have been positive instead of negative. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe positive campaigning can be alot more effective than negative campaigning in the long run. However, maybe Floyd Bayne or Rick Waugh can shake things up this time using negative campaigning.

      This past week, we did research about Utah and the presidential race of 2004 and started to watch the movie This Divided State. This was a film made by a college student to capture the cotroversy of bringing Michael Moore to speak at a college in Utah. The reason this was so controversial was that Michael Moore has an extremly liberal point of view and the state of Utah was extremly conservative. Many believed that the youth would be corrupted by what Michael Moore had to say and didn't want him to come and share his opinion.

     In class we discussed how this relates to the freedom of speech and whether or not his freedom's are being respected. I believe his freedom of speech isn't being protected. He should be able to express his views with other people who may not agree with him. Most of the people in Utah in this movie seem to appear as hardheaded and resistent to change and associate Michael Moore with evil because he doesn't share the same conservative views. I think it's good for people to see different views on everything. It helps them to develope their own opinion of certain issues.

     An application of this to a controversial issue today is letting the Tea Party candidates speak their minds and opinions about modern issues. It seems as though somehow, the Tea Party has recently been given a bad name and anything associated with it seems to be associated with evil and anarchy. However, I believe that they shouldn't be judged by the bad name someone has given them. They should be able to give a speech without protest and be judged critically on what they have to say and where they stand on the issues rather than the political party they are associated with.

     I leave my blog today with a question: How many supreme court records are there involving the issue of Freedom of Speech and what was determined?

"CQ Politics | District Detail: VA-07." CQ Politics | Congressional, Presidential and Political News, Blogs, Member Profiles. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=district-2010-VA-07>.

"Free-speech Dialogue « Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell." Mission Europa Netzwerk Karl Martell. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://missioneuropakmartell.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/political-cartoons/free-speech-dialogue/>.

Kurtzman, Daniel. "Alice on Wonderland Tea Party Cartoon - Political Cartoon." Political Humor - Jokes Satire and Political Cartoons. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/politicalcartoons/ig/Tea-Party-Cartoons/Stupidest-Tea-Party.1-4w.htm>.