beautifulprayer

aww. you rule too! and i love you too ;)

and zenyatta most definitely rules :D

1998 wasn't all that bad for Clinton. His party actually picked up seats in that year's election which rarely happens.

I know. I helped that effort. I was volunteering for the local county Dems and helped make phone calls nationwide. I had every reason to run away from politics, and I ran towards it. I didn't really know why. I wanted to show my support and that I didn't give up I guess. Turned out to be really great, but I still wish the year didn't exist otherwise..lol.

Plus, I was trying to help add to my application to American, keeping my poltiical dreams alive. It wasn't easy that year.

I think that impeaching Clinton had the opposite effect on the voting public than what the Republicans wanted or expected. They probably thought that impeaching him would embarass him and make the public turn against him, but it actually helped his popularity.

Since CLinton reached office, I think the Republicans were trying to find a reason to impeach him because I think he always came off as kind of a shady politician, so allegations against him were believable. They investigated him for a lot of things like allegedly shady real estate deals, Travel Gate, File Gate, but Monica Gate was the only thing that could really stick. Either that or 1) they did not have enough evidence against CLinton to bring up charges in any of the other things they were investigating him for or 2) he did a really good job of hiding stuff, or 3) it was truly a witch hunt. Of course, I think something like sex with an intern gets more of a reaction out of people than something like a shady real estate deal which is too complicated for most Americans to understand or get passionate about. They probably used MOnicaGate because they thought it would get the most reaction out of people.

I think, in retrospect, the Republicans constant investigation of Clinton hurt the country more than helped it, even though what he did really was wrong, impeaching him brought about a "gotcha culture" in Washington where everyone is always trying to find dirt on everyone else. When Bush was in office, a lot of Democrats were always trying to find ways to impeach Bush, but I don't think that he did anything as President that was an impeachable offense. Being a disappointing President is not a reason to impeach someone.

As for helping a college application. Working on political campaigns helps? I never wanted to work on political campaigns when I was in high school. Probably, mostly because I lived in Broward County where the Republican would most likely lose bigtime anyway. I thought that extracirricular activities like being involved in charitable organizations or academic-sounding school clubs would help me more when I was in high school. Of course, msot college staff is liberal and you are helping Democrats, so that probably helps you, but if I campaigned for Republicans and put it on my application as an extracirricular activity, that would probably be a strike against me.

American University has a great journalism program. Its too bad that it costs $48,000/yr to go there. I would have to win the lottery to be able to afford to go there.

It wasn't just that they decided to use Monica, they couldn't prove anything else. Even Starr's own investigation, after 8 years and billions of dollars, concluded that both Clintons never did anything wrong. It concluded essentially that Whitewater was a real estate deal gone bad. Now you have people on the right, who think that people like Susan McDougal, Jim McDougal, Webb Hubble, Jim Guy Tucker, were all just scapegoats and took the fall and somehow fell victim to the "deathly Clinton machine". And some of those people weren't all that guilty either, but it wasn't really like that. I am sure if they could have found any real wrongdoing in any of that, they would have. They didn't. They just got him on the Monica business.

I never really understood Whitewater. And I tried, believe me. I've read everything imaginable on it. I watched all the hearings, I even attended one in 1996 for the Senate Whitewater Committee, headed by Al D'Amato from NY, remember him? I always wanted to get to the bottom of it, but I didn't understand it. I'm finding that now, 15 years later, and being close to 30, I STILL don't understand it! How I thought I could figure it out at 15 years old, I have no idea..HAHAHA!

Working on political campaigns, any kind of extra curricular activity always helps on college applications. Actually, since I was transferring, I didn't even need any of those activities, but I was working my butt off to get in that I figured it couldn't hurt. And it didn't.

AU is crazy expensive. It was expensive when I went and it was only about $28K a year.

I think that is the reason why they went for the MOnica stuff against Clinton.

You are pretty knowledgable and can't really understand Whitewater. Just imagine the average American trying to figure out Whitewater. People would be bored to tears about. But a sex scandal really gets Americans riled up.

What school did you go to before going to American Univ? I think that working on campaigns looks better for you than me since you are a Demcorat and I am generally a conservative. I think there is an effort in a lot of universities to drown out conservative thought. Have you seen Expelled with Ben Stein? As for the cost of American Univ, the $48K, I believe is the cost of the graduate program.

I went to Community College to start college. AU's price tag kept me from going there as a freshman, not to mention my lackluster SATs. I hated it at the time, my parents decision, but it was a great experience. I got all my gen eds out of the way, they all transferred and I saved my parents a ton of money in the process. I recommend it to people all the time. I probably wasn't mature enough anyway, even though I thought I was.

My best friend at the time had also gone to AU and started in 1998 and told me he was glad I wasn't down in DC then with all the impeachment stuff.

That whole thing ended up happening at a good time for me (even though it didn't seem like it then). I needed to stand on my own with my political dreams and have my eyes open to the reality of everything. Before that I was a naive, stupid teenager whose political dreams were wrapped up in my political hero. Once that whole thing happened, I was able to get over it and move on and I felt like my reward was getting into AU and going to DC, having had a great learning experience.

But it was extremely hard. To this day, it was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do.

I took a couple of AP classes in high school, which looks good on a high school record, but I think I would have done better to be in dual enrollment and be taking college-level classes at the local community college and still get high school credit for them because I probably could have finished more basic courses that way. Of coruse, taking AP classes probably helped bring my GPA higher so I could claim at 4.2 and get above that 4.0 mark. My highest SAT was 1190 or something like that.

I stayed within Florida and went to UNiv of Florida because 1) UF was a pretty highly rated school and 2) it was in-state so it was cheaper and I could use Florida Pre-paid and my bright futures scholarship there. I think Florida, compared to a lot of other states, at least when I went to college, had a pretty good system of making the state univerisities affordable and accessable.

Fortunately for me, Ronald Reagan was President when I was a kid, so to me, he is more of a mythical figure, instead of someone whom we knew all of his dirty laundry. I went to college hoping to be a lawyer, but halfway through that, rethinking that. I think too much. I did one semester of graduate level poli sci for the political campaigning program, which I call the "Semester from Hell" because there was a lot of drama going on with my family 325 miles away, which was a huge distraction for me. Being in the Lone Star State is probably good for me because I am safely 11 hours away and detached from any drama that may come along. I didn't really know if political campaigning was really good for me because the work is unstable. You are dealing with people who may be unstable themselves. One of my professor's candidates was arrested for beating his wife, during the campaign. You may be out of the job if people quit or they are not happy with your performance. You can't really raise a family like that. Another thing, since the system completely favors incumbents, you are most likely fighting an uphill battle unless it is a change election like 1994 or 2006.

Oh wow, that sucks about your professor's candidate.

Nice job on your SATs though, you did better than me. I'm doing the paralegal stuff now so I get the law interest. It's really interesting. Florida is a good state to go to school in, lots of great schools down there.

That professor was trying to show us how you cna get anyone and sometimes you get candidates with messed up personal lives, who have no business being in politics. I think he knew that that guy was definitely going to lose with all that coming out.

People like to bash Florida a lot for whatever reason, but there is a lot of good to say about it. Now homeowner's insurance and property taxes were beginning to get out of hand in South Florida, but the state manages to have no state income taxes, keep the cost of running the government low, while balancing the budget, and keeping the cost of college relateively low for a state of that size. Of course, I think cost of living and homeowners' insurance rates are really going to catch up with the state and Gov. Crist's modest $240 property tax cut is not going to do much to help things in the long run. I think it will just be a band aid solution. I just hope Florida doesn't become like California.

I know the health care down there is awful though. My aunt and uncle winter down there and my uncle has had a lot of health problems and my aunt told me how bad their care is. You would think with all the elderly people, that wouldn't be the case. It's a shame.

Thew health care in Florida bad. What aspect of health care are you talking about? THe availability of health care? Affordability? The doctors?

I think it is hard to find a good doctor there. I had one doctor, that I think was trying to dope me up on medication, probably to make more money. Other times, I go, and they start trying to talk to me in Spanish because of my last name. Is it too much to ask for a doctor to be English-Speaking, competent, respectful, and likeable?

I haven't seen that Ben Stein film, but I really don't think there's an effort to drown out conservative thought. I have a lot of good friends from AU who were conservatives and their political involvement helped them.

How many liberal professors or registered Democrats are in every department and how many conservatives, libertarians, or registered Republicans are in every department? A while back, the conservative newspaper in my school looked at the voter registration records for all the professors in the Poli Sci Dept. in my school and 27 were regisgtered Democrats, 4, I think, were Independents, and I think the rest of the professors were registered in another county. I don't believe they had a single Republican, except one of the professors is a conservative, has Reagan stuff in his office, but I think he was one of the ones registered in another county.

Oh, I don't know the political breakdown of AU, but I guess there are more Democrats than Republicans, it's a pretty liberal school. But it's not that liberal, like in Berkeley or some place.

Hey, random question. Do you have AIM or something, Facebook? I'd love to chat with you more off LJ.

I have Yahoo for my email, so I have Yahoo messenger. I do have facebook, but I don't sign on that often. Sounds like a good idea...

I stopped using Yahoo Messenger a year or two ago, I kept getting weirdos who would find me.

I use facebook, but PM me your email address and I can email you there.

I sent you a message...