Mario Guerrero, Ph.D | Assistant Professor of Political Science

Mario Guerrero is a professor of political science at Cal Poly Pomona, located in the Greater Los Angeles area. Dr. Guerrero specializes in American elections, political communication, and campaign finance.

Student Blog Post: Trump faltered in the first presidential debate, but there’s more to come

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The “Student Blog Post” series invites students from my PLS 321: Electoral Process course to author their own blogs about recent election events. 

trump-clinton

The 2016 General Election is right around the corner! We do not have much time to decide who to vote, do we? You have Hillary Clinton on one side, representing the Democratic Party, while Donald Trump of the Republican Party on the other side. Lester Holt, the moderator, divided the debate into three main segments including achieving prosperity, America’s direction, and securing America.

The candidates began by addressing economic growth in terms of reaching the well-being of the citizens. Clinton argued that companies should profit share by having the wealthy pay their fair share and end corporate loopholes. The middle-class already pays more than their fair share, so the average American is living paycheck-by-paycheck. However, Trump acknowledged the fact that many companies are leaving America to do business elsewhere. To prevent this, Trump proposed to reduce taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent for businesses. Both candidates seem to have different means of advancing the economy. Looking at Trump’s tax plan, experts have stated that the plan would increase the debt by over five trillion dollars. This has the potential to throw us in another recession. The discussion then turned to the release of tax returns. While Trump is under a routine audit, Trump still maintains a position that he does not want to release his tax returns. At this point, we actually do not know much about his business and personal wealth. It seems that Trump is becoming more hesitant with his actions as a politician that elections are coming up soon. Many citizens are curious about his tax returns to say the least. Is this what America wants, a president that cannot properly finish things? I think not. While the topic of achieving prosperity is important, we should look how each candidate responds to the direction of America.

It seems that race still remains a challenge in America. Clinton recalled examples of Tulsa and Charlotte, assuring every citizen to be respected by the law, while respecting it at the same time. On the other hand, Trump spoke about minority groups such as African Americans and Hispanics, connecting their living conditions to the issues of gun control and crime. He argued we should take away guns from people that misuse them. In “Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential Run, Explained,” Libby Nelson and Tez Clark stated that Trump has a long history of racism against African Americans and Mexicans. Especially on the issue of immigration, Trump has connected drugs and crime to Mexican immigration. There is a form of hypocrisy manifesting in Trump’s political base that respects minority groups but while still harboring negative opinions. This shows that he is not a supporter of immigration at all. Opposite to Trump’s view, Clinton wants to advocate in re-training police officers because mental health is a concern. This would reduce bigotry by a significant amount. Besides what is happening in America, we should solely focus on what is happening outside out of our country.

Finally, the last segment focused on what means to securing America. Institutions have been cyber attacked and information is being stolen. Clinton stated there are independent hacking groups that are stealing information for money purposes. Furthermore, she proposes a plan to stop ISIS by utilizing more airstrikes and supporting Arab and Kurdish partners. Nonetheless, Trump disregarded her statements, arguing that the military should have seized oil in order to prevent ISIS. The point that Trump is bringing up makes him impatient and unprepared. Holt also reminded Trump that he supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. While Clinton wants to create peace outside the borders, Trump wants to instill fear into other countries. However, Trump is continuing on recklessly with no direction to maintain common relations with other nations.

To conclude, this debate really exemplifies their political views in an open atmosphere. Both candidates seem to be straight to the point of what the voters are looking for in their views. However, there are two more presidential debates coming up. This is not the end, yet.

Alexander Pineda is a political science major who transferred from Mount San Antonio College to continue his studies in Cal Poly Pomona. He enjoys watching anime and volunteering in his free time.

Obama calls California Attorney General Kamala Harris the best-looking attorney general

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Kamala Harris is an accomplished politician: she is the state’s first female, African-American, and Asian-American attorney general in California. She also probably has aspirations to run for higher political office in the future, a possible candidate for California Governor or Supreme Court justice. She even spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and has been a longtime Obama ally.

Last week at a fundraiser, President Obama made an off-the-cuff remark about Harris:

She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough,” Obama said of the California attorney general. “She also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general … It’s true! C’mon.

Obama has since apologized for the comment, specifically citing that “he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities smoking everywhere electronic cigarette.”

The media has been somewhat slow to react to the comment, but pundits and commentators have consistently argued that this is the result of an overly-sensitive society.

While I believe that Obama and Harris are not at odds and agree that Obama is a strong advocate for women, this kind of media response is somewhat disturbing. The political reality is that women are grossly underrepresented in our government. Claiming that the reaction is a result of an increasingly “politically correct” society only trivializes the inequality between men and women in government. Sure enough, research in political science has shown that gender stereotypes significantly affect women in Congress. Yes, Obama did apologize, but the media should not be so quick to minimize the reality of the situation.

The rules of the game: Reality television as a model for elections

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This quarter, I’m teaching a course in the Electoral Process. It’s definitely timely subject matter as the we are in the midst of the 2012 presidential election.

In the beginning of the course, I spend about a week talking about the normative reasons for why American elections are set up in the way that they are. For students not familiar with normative discourse, the conversation can be difficult to grasp. I start the conversation by drawing a comparison to the game of football. Football has seemingly arbitrary rules. I mean, who decided that you score six points for a touchdown and three points for a field goal? Why not three points for a touchdown and six for a field goal? As a former high school football player, I can tell you these rules had serious implications for who won and who lost games. (Our team usually lost. Seriously, I think our season was 1-9.)

Although last week’s referee debacle helped illustrate my point, I unfortunately do not follow football anymore. The point is simple: the rules, and their interpretation, can change outcomes easily. Different countries employ different electoral systems, which determines who wins and who loses elections.

As an aside, I threw in a reference about how competitive reality shows work in a very similar way. Reality shows are not about electing a representative to public office, but about selecting a winner in some inane competition. These competitions employ different sets of rules, some of which are modeled after political processes. At least initially, I made the comment in jest, but the more I thought about it, I became surprised about how much these reality shows are adapted from political life.

First, the grandfather of competitive reality television, Survivor, prides itself on being an innovative social experiment. Sixteen contestants are put on an island, and vote in a plurality system, until only one person is left standing. Survivor is somewhat of a democracy, without the protections of the minority. The needs of the majority always win out, and a huge part of the game is ensuring you are in that majority to not get voted out.

Big Brother is yet another competitive reality show where one competitor is left standing to win $500,000. It’s also a plurality system, with a nomination system in place. Two candidates are nominated by a house leader, and the player with the most votes, ends up leaving the house. The producers of Big Brother frequently intervene, often introducing new competitions, rules, and punishments that change the direction of the game. Thus, while Big Brother is a modified system, it’s competition is unfairly swayed by super electronic cigarette its officials.

Top Chef is an oligarchy, where decisions about who wins competitions is decided by a panel of expert chefs. Most “judging panel” shows follow the same format, a group of judges criticize the contestants, and then who decides who goes home. Think America’s Top Model, X-Factor, American Idol, and Project Runway. In some of these shows, power is concentrated in the hands of only judges, but X-Factor, Idol, and Dancing With the Stars eventually ask America to vote for who stays and who goes. In that sense, it’s an elitist democracy, but the people ultimately have some hand in electing these representatives to office.

The Apprentice can only be described as a dictatorship. Real-life presidential hopeful Donald Trump stands at the head of his boardroom and fires his contestants one-by-one until only one remains. Sometimes Trump is criticized for making decisions that are completely nonsensical. Not surprising for a powerful leader drunk on his own power. However, his decisions are often made to keep the most controversial and not the most proficient candidates on the show, which ultimately increases his ratings. While it appears nonsensical, perhaps Trump is a diabolical genius.

The Bachelor(ette) is difficult to categorize. It’s much like The Apprentice in that one person is responsible for deciding who stays and who goes. However, the aims of the game are much different in Bachelor. Men (or women) are looking for their future wives. In that sense, I would characterize The Bachelor as a ridiculously misogynistic backwards-monarchy.

Finally, you have competitive reality shows that are exclusively based on merit, at least in theory. The Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, and The Mole determine their winners by who performs better on the assigned task. Whether it’s a race around the world, a quest to lose the most weight, or get the most correct answers on an exam, these winners are determined by performance. However, in the world of television, this quickly loses its luster, and then rules change. For these three shows, producers have complicated the process by allowing contestants to interfere with each other’s progress.

Nonetheless, this (fun!) exercise is a good demonstration about how rules determine winners and losers. The rules in each of these examples are vastly different. And in many instances, a slight change in the rules can drastically affect the outcome. Elections work the same way. Countries employ different electoral systems and these systems determine who wins office. Different officeholders mean that different policies will eventually be instituted. Thus, while we are vastly concerned about who will win in 2012, we should always keep an eye on how we elect these officials to office.