Letters to the Editor | Misc should cover feature politics

In your 11.13.06 edition, The Miscellany News contained just four paragraphs on Vassar’s own district and its election of John Hall buried within another article. Were this just another story about Vassar students’ involvement in the political process, I would not be writing you today, but it’s far more than that.

The Congressional District in which Vassar is placed (currently the 19th) has not been represented by a Democrat for over four decades! (As far as I can tell, there was a two year blip back in the early 1960s of Democratic representation.) This was the first time in over a decade that votes cast by Vassar students reverberated nationally, but there was almost no coverage by the Misc.

Hall’s election was a big deal nationally, too. John Hall and his campaign, which included many Vassar students worked for many months and were shunned as a lost-cause by every political pundit and political scientist. The New York Times called his win the “biggest surprise of (election) night.” The Washington Post dedicated a national feature on John Hall. And Stephen Colbert, the renowned pundit, invited John Hall onto his show twice, more than any other freshman congressman.

This was an election on the issues that Vassar students care about: the war in Iraq, Universal Healthcare, college assistance, and civil rights.

Unfortunately, I believe The Miscellany News dropped the ball by never spending the time and resources to bring this vitally important story to the attention of Vassar students. In the aforementioned article, a 24 percent youth turnout was celebrated. Not only should we decry such a vastly underwhelming show of democratic responsibility by our peers; the Misc should seriously reconsider the way it covers elections and engages its readers in the political process.

—Michael Donnelly ’07