#12 AoD

Just this past week, Senator Barack Obama beat Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democrat primary in South Carolina. He won beacause his campaign staff as well as himself, did their work. What supposedly helped him was that about half the voters were black. South Carolina was Baracks first victory since the Iowa caucus beack at the beginning of January. In south Carolina, precint votes show Obama in the lead, Clinton in second, and Edwards in third. However Clinton is in the lead overall, with Obama in second, and Edwards still in third. Next up is Super tuesday on February fifth which will take place in New Jersey. This will be the earliest presidental primary in history. There will also be primaries and/or Caucuses in twenty-three other states which is why February fifth is known as Super Tuesday. As of now the latest polls show Clinton ahead of Obama for the Democrats and McCain ahead of Giuliani for the Republicans. Chances are that Super Tuesday is going to reveal the finalists in the race for the presidency.

#11 AoD

For this post I am going to focus on finding an issue or something related that I want to follow. One of the bigger issues that I could focus on is the primaries. It is practically inevitable that the Democrats will win the next election. What I could focus on is the tension between Clinton and Obama. It would be an interesting issue to follow because Clinton is the first woman who has come the closest to becoming president. Obama on the other hand is the first black person to run for president. Both parties being considered minorities will make this election a heated one. On another hand I could follow the Iraq war. It has been a difficult issue over the past few years and it happens to be one of the only issues I am interested in right now. However, by following the primaries I might get a better feeling of how the Iraq war will go. Chances are, no matter who wins, our troops will be pulled out so the question is, “What will happen to Iraq when our troops are pulled out?” Other than these issues, there is nothing else that intrests me enough to blog about.

#10 AoD

My cohort has just started Political Science and Sociology as two of our classes. It deals with the way politics work and how the government is run as well as how society and people live and interact. This in general, relates to Arts of Democracy because they also deal with similar issues. Arts of democracy and sociology relate because they both look into how people interact and how they live. Arts of Democracy and Political science relate becuase Arts of Democracy look at the basics for the democratic system which in turn is used in politics. Seeing as we are only a day into the class, I do not have a deeper understanding of how the the three classes relater but as ther quarter goes on I believe that I will start to see more of the connections. On another note, I was able to apply the arts of democracy to my life during Christmas break. My parents decided to let my little brother and sister choose cat that they wanted to get. They did not argue about it but I could tell that they were getting close to a confrontation. I stepped in and tryed to help them settle the matter. My sister wanted the black cat and my brother wanted the orange one. My brother gave in regardless of my assistance. However, my sister wanted to name our new cat too. I suggested that it was only fair that my brother get to name it since he did not get to pick it. Luckily we were able to avoid an argument becuase of my interference. That is how the arts of Democracy has related to my life in recent weeks. If you were curious by chance, we named the cat Arlene.