Monday, May 19, 2008
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
15
Eco-overdrive
A new shade of blue
J decided last week that for
the first time in my life,
I was ready to give in to
peer pressure.
Considering
the degree to
which I harp
on my family
and friends to
turn the lights
off and unplug I
appliances, I KATE
harbor a pretty TRUESDELL
incriminating
skeleton in my
closet - I drive an SUV.
To be fair, it's a small one. But
my fine ride of a beige 1999 GMC
Jimmy is enough to qualify me for
hypocrite status. For years, I've.
endured unending heckling on
this point, the disparity between
my words and my actions a glar-
ing point of contradiction. To ease
my mind, I rationalized that I was
way too broke to afford making a
switch. But with a bit of gradua-
tion money tucked away- not to
mention, in the face of $4-a-gal-
lon gas at 16 miles per gallon - I
finally decided my friends were
right. It was time to put my money
where my mouth was.
So I turned to my trusted friend
Google, the omnipotent source
of information in my life, sure
that after a few hours searching
I would be ready to sign a check
and drive off into the sunset, guilt
free. But instead of winding up
with a new car, what I wound up
with was a headache.
My first goal was high fuel
economy, so I set my sights on
hybrid technology. Now, I con-
sider myself a simple Midwest
girl - I don't need a lot of bells
and whistles or even power win-
dows for that matter. So I figured
I would find a nice used Prius,
perhaps a little well-worn but still
functional, no problem. Wrong.
A used 2001 Toyota Prius will
cost you somewhere in the ball-
park of $10,000-$11,000. For a
car only two years newer than the
one I have, that meant I would pay
three times as much as I paid ini-
tially for my current vehicle. I was-
disheartened to say the least.
Frazzled, I typed furiously,
searching the dark corners of
cyberspace, desperate for a bet-
ter deal. But the more information
I came across, the less sure I was
of what I was looking for. Hybrids
are nice, but maybe cost-pro-
hibitive. And getting kick-ass gas
mileage is good, but what about
alternative fuel? If oil is really the
source of our sins overseas, maybe
my money says more if I forget
gas altogether. Sure, ethanol is a
crock, but what about biodiesel?
Turns out that's tricky too. At
first glance it seems great, and
people are certainly jumping on
the bandwagon quickly. Accord-
ing to the National Biodiesel
Board, sales per gallon for the
fuel increased 500-fold between
1999 and 2006. But there's more
to it: Making a car biodiesel-ready
involves complicated technical
conversions way beyond my abili-
ties, considering I view being able
to read my tire pressure a shining
achievement.
Plus, biodiesel is typically more
expensive than regular diesel - or
is it? Considering the average cost
of regular already sits well above
the wallet-squeezing $4 mark,
that'. But allowing for tax credits,
it might end up a wash, as long as
you are willing to carry around a
calculator to figure out what the
hell you are actually paying.
How reducing
footprints causes
headaches.
And, of course, there's the
problem of needing to have a reli-
able source of specialized fuel, not
easy considering I have no idea
where I'll end up come fall. If I
were stuck somewhere I couldn't
get what I needed, I'd be stuck
with a diesel engine, forced to
buy the regular stuff, making my
carbon footprint decidedly on par
with Sasquatch.
By the end of my afternoon
spent searching, instead of feel-
ing satisfied and eco-savvy, I felt
hurt, confused and ready for some
serious antihypertensives. As I
find is often the case, in trying to
make conscientious life choices
even the best of intentions didn't
get me to where I wanted to go.
Kate Truesdell is the summer
editorial page editor. She can be
reached at ketrue@umich.edu.
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thepodium
Travis Childers is not Ann
Arbor's idea of a Demo-
crat. Although his party
s associated
with the liberal
left, the future
Mississippi
representa-
tive is socially
conservative.
For instance,
Childers is HARUN
both pro-life BULJINA
and a staunch
advocate of
gun rights. If he wanted to run
for Congress around Washtenaw
County, it's doubtful he'd even
make it to the ballot. But Travis
Childers is not running anywhere
near here. Instead, he just won a
special election in Mississippi's
lst Congressional District - one
of the most conservative, and
Republican dominated corners of
the country.
By any account, the Republi-
cans should have had an easy time
with this district. Rural and con-
servative, it's a region that, in the
last presidential election, voted by
a 25-point margin to reelect Presi-
dent Bush. Statistically, it's about
as safely Republican as Ann Arbor
and Ypsilanti's district is Demo-
crat. As if that all wasn't enough,
Childers's opponent Greg Davis
was a perfectly decent GOP can-
didate, free from any of the usual
sex scandals or racial slurs caught
on videotape.
So what gives? Leading Repub-
licans were quick to rationalize
the defeat, claiming that Childers
won by relying on traditional
Republicanissues. Inthisview, the
Republicans could accept defeat
without conceding problems with
their platform. The party had sim-
ply been outfoxed by a Democrat
in Republican clothing - one that,
as Republican representative Tom
Cole explained, was not "in step
with ... the Democratic majority."
In fact, it is Cole and the Republi-
can Party who are not in step with
a changing political reality.
Travis Childers represents a
newbreed of Democrat- one that
can challenge the GOP in even
the most conservative regions of
the country. Although his views
on certain social issues like abor-
tion and gun control break from
Democratic tradition, they were
hardly the focal point of his cam-
paign Instead, Childers offered
Mississippi voters a platform
centered on economic populism
and ending the unpopular war
in Iraq. In short, he won because
he addressed topics of immediate
concern to the daily lives of Mis-
sissippi voters.
Davis and the Republicans,
on the other hand, lost because
they didn't. Rather than distanc-
ing themselves from President
Bush's foreign policy or offering
concrete solutions to the region's
economic malaise, they resorted
to their traditional name-call-
ing. In a desperate attempt to mar
Childers's image, everyone from
Dick Cheney to Mike Huckabee
was flown into the district to
chastise him. He was a liberal,
they claimed, running to be Nancy
Pelosi's pawn and somehow tied to
Barack Obama and his scary black
preacher.
None of it worked. When the
dusthad settled, Childers had won
the district by a hefty 7 percent..
Childers's social conserva-
tism didn't carry him to victory;
it merely neutralized the typical
Republican route of attack. With-
out abortion and gun control,what
was left for conservative critics to
latch onto? They certainly tried to
find alternative targets, but lacked
any cohesive strategy against this
new breed of Democrat.
Childers'svictoryis a testament
to just how frustrated voters are
with the Bush administration and
a Republican party that refuses to
jump ship from its agenda. Even
in the reddest parts of the nation,
voters are fed up enough to see
past the mud-slinging.
Dems change
politcial map
with new breed.
The aftershock of Childers's
victory will be felt far outside of
northern Mississippi. He offers
a new sort of blueprint, one that
Democrats can now follow in near-
ly any part of the country. In fact,
the last two years have already
seen this happen elsewhere:
Socially conservative Democrats
have now been elected governors
and senators everywhere from
Montana to Louisiana.
United around such issues as
the war in Iraq, health care and
Social Security, Democrats are
strong, organized and offering vot-
ers comprehensive change. If they
play their cards right, the party
may not only be headed for short-
term electoral victory, but to a
major realignment of our country's
political landscape as well.
Harun Buljina is the
summer associate editorial
page editor. He can be reached
at buljinah@umich.edu.
JASON MAHAKIAN
E-MAIL MAHAKIAN AT MAHAKIANJ@UMICH.EDU.
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E-mail Kate Truesdell at
ketrue@umich.edu