Opinion

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, 

Jeremy Kaplan, Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, 

Aarica Marsh, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren Schandevel, 

Melissa Scholke, Rebecca Tarnopol, Ashley Tjhung, 

Stephanie Trierweiler, Mary Kate Winn, Derek Wolfe, Hunter Zhao

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Let’s be friends

S

aturday, Jan. 23, news broke 
that Michael Bloomberg was 
mulling a run for president. 

The 73-year-old 
billionaire 
and 

Independent 
former mayor of 
New York City 
had 
instructed 

advisers to draw 
up plans for a 
campaign. 
By 

the 
following 

Monday 
morn-

ing, however, his 
possible 
cam-

paign had been 
pronounced dead 
by thousands. Not by ballots or polls, 
or any sort of popular voice, but by 
likes, comments and retweets.

Almost immediately, editorials 

flooded into the news cycle, ques-
tioning his chances and declaring 
him the 2016 equivalent of Ralph 
Nader. But why? In a race that fea-
tures intensely polarizing candi-
dates and a profound divide between 
party insiders and “anti-establish-
ment” candidates, Bloomberg has 
the potential to capture the ideologi-
cal middle. It may not be apparent, 
but as party-faithfuls in Iowa and 
New Hampshire embrace hyper-
conservative rhetoric on the right 
and populist progressivism on the 
left, there are many voters who are 
not comfortable voting for a Donald 
Trump or a Bernie Sanders.

Mayor Bloomberg has proven suc-

cessful in both the public and private 
sectors. Relatively popular during 
his tenure in the Big Apple, he led 
the fight to reform public schools 
(with an 18-percent increase in 
high school graduation rates within 
five years of his taking office). He 
fought to reduce greenhouse gases, 
improved the city’s transportation 
system and helped reduce crime 
rates. If he could do to the country 
what he did to New York City, he 
would be one of the best presidents 
in modern history. Being socially 
liberal and fiscally conservative, 
Bloomberg is both pro-abortion 
rights and pro-immigration reform. 
So why, exactly, is he plagued by 
articles titled “No way, no how” and 
“Why Michael Bloomberg for presi-

dent makes no sense”?

In this age of round-the-clock 

coverage and constant activity on 
social media, this new brand of 
article seems to dominate the news. 
Journalists, for the sake of ease and 
click-bait value, forego declarative 
statements and title their articles 
with a question, opening up discus-
sion often without taking on the 
responsibility of answering it. From 
“Is Hillary Clinton more elect-
able than Bernie Sanders?” to “Can 
Establishment Candidate Rubio Still 
Win for the GOP?,” articles lazily 
disregard an old adage in journalism 
— any headline that ends in a ques-
tion mark can be answered by the 
word no. Otherwise, they’d be titled 
“Hillary Clinton is more electable 
than Bernie Sanders” and “Estab-
lishment Candidate Rubio Can Win 
for the GOP.” By framing these 
articles as questions, seeds of doubt 
are planted from the outset. Readers 
can draw conclusions without get-
ting past the title — it happened nine 
months ago with Bernie Sanders 
and it’s happening once again with 
Michael Bloomberg.

Days later, these sentiments were 

echoed by polls that placed Bloom-
berg at around 9 percent in races 
against Republican and Democratic 
frontrunners. In this way, articles 
and the journalists who write them 
appear impartial and unbiased — but 
Americans’ obsession with polls is 
misleading at best and downright 
corruptive at worst. Check the poll 
numbers on Bernie Sanders during 
his campaign’s early stages. He was 
referred to as the Ron Paul of the left 
— a quixotic long shot, a fly on the 
windshield of the Clinton machine. 
But after surmounting the challenge 
of low name recognition and carving 
out his support in the liberal base, 
Sanders is a household name, and 
millennials across the country are 
“feeling the Bern.”

One of the most common themes 

in the primaries thus far has been 
electability. Can this candidate suc-
ceed outside of the primary states? 
Sanders clings to polls that say he 
fares better than Hillary Clinton 
against the majority of Republicans, 
while Trump rallies are often high-
lighted by cherry-picked data that 

claim he is the outright and indisput-
able favorite over Cruz and Rubio. 
But what each and every analysis 
leaves out is that electability is an 
entirely subjective and (more impor-
tantly) fluid concept.

In 2008, similar remarks about 

viability were leveled against a 
young African American senator 
from Illinois. In 1959, Democrats 
and journalists worried over the 
prospect of nominating a Catho-
lic — but all their intel and politi-
cal acumen were invalidated when 
John F. Kennedy walloped Hubert 
Humphrey in widely Protestant 
West Virginia and went on to win 
the nomination.

To be fair, if ever there was a pres-

idential election to cover, it would be 
this one. As easy as it is to blame “the 
media” for the long list of problems 
our society faces, put yourself in the 
shoes of someone who writes for The 
Huffington Post or hosts a political 
podcast, or has airtime on Fox News 
or MSNBC. How could you resist 
discussing a loudmouthed reality 
television star feuding with a Cana-
dian-born immigration crusader, or 
a fiery progressive with a Brooklyn 
accent challenging a former first 
lady? This election has been political 
theater at its best.

When I read the articles that 

explained why Michael Bloomberg 
has no shot at moving into the White 
House in 2017, I didn’t entirely dis-
agree. I think he lacks the charisma 
and the foreign policy experience. 
His support of the Stop-and-Frisk 
program will complicate his appeal 
to African Americans and Latino 
voters. But by no means is he the 
unfathomable long-shot the media 
has painted him to be.

Think of how many decisions have 

been made for the entire election 
season before the Iowa caucuses. 
Candidates have been pronounced 
underdogs, frontrunners, dead in 
the water or building momentum. 
All without a single vote cast. So, at 
least in the case of Michael Bloom-
berg’s presidential campaign, I’m 
not quite ready to accept the fore-
gone conclusions.

Brett Graham can be reached 

at btgraham@umich.edu. 

A 

couple weeks ago, I accepted an 
invitation to get coffee with someone 
I’d never met before. Asking someone 

you don’t know well out 
for coffee seems normal, 
but I mean it when I say 
that I’d never met this 
person before — I didn’t 
even know what he (or 
she) 
looked 
like. 
The 

idea was to have fun and 
maybe make a new friend. 
The initiative came from a 
new campus group called 
Argo UMich.

Argo 
finds 
it 
can 

sometimes be hard to 
meet people outside the 
confines of class, something students across 
the University can related to. It’s intimidating 
to strike up a conversation with someone who 
just happens to be walking across the Diag in 
the same direction as you — as Argo explained 
in an e-mail with the Daily, “If you’re not in the 
same class or club, you don’t have an excuse.” 
Sometimes you’re too busy to join new clubs or 
take on more extracurricular activities. Maybe 
partying isn’t really your scene because you 
prefer talking to people one-on-one in places 
where you don’t find it necessary to shout over 
the music.

You probably know you’re capable of being 

funny and interesting — that you’re able to 
hold a conversation, but only if you’re given 
the chance to get one started. And it can be 
hard to maintain relationships when you’re 
not involved in activities with your friends, 
instead having to schedule times when you can 
meet up in person. With all of those things in 
mind, I signed up for a Friday afternoon slot 
at Sweetwaters on East Liberty Street. At the 
very least, I figured I’d be able to enjoy a hot 
cup of tea and some macarons.

Argo sends e-mails to each pair of students 

a few minutes before their friend-date is 
supposed to start, providing each with a link 
to the other’s Facebook page and offering a 
short list of questions to get the conversation 
going. But since I don’t have data on my phone 
and was coming straight from class, I didn’t 
have a chance to so much as glance at my 
mystery-friend’s profile picture, and worried 
that I wouldn’t be able to recognize whoever 
I was meeting. Almost as soon as I walked in, 
though, I was greeted by another girl with the 
words, “Hi, are you here for Argo?”

Over hot drinks, we got as far as the first 

question Argo had sent along — What is 
something you used to do as a child that you 
wish you could still do? Then the talk went in 
a totally different direction as we discovered 
a strong passion we both shared: a love of 
art. We swapped preferences for paints and 
the best places to buy art supplies (agreeing 

on www.dickblick.com, nodding sadly to the 
Walgreens that was once Michigan Book & 
Supply). We complimented pictures of one 
another’s pieces that we had on our laptops 
and phones. When it was time for both of us 
to leave, we looked up and found the hour had 
flown by.

As Argo had hoped would be the case, we had 

fun. Though the organization doesn’t match 
people for their preferences, instead using 
time and location to set up the coffee dates, we 
were able to find an area which we had a lot in 
common, and that’s what Argo hopes for: “We 
know there is something really exciting and 
powerful about meeting someone new and 
discovering all that you have in common and all 
that makes you different — and we don’t think 
students get the opportunity to connect with 
one another in this way very often, if at all.”

Though I haven’t kept in touch with the girl 

I talked to that rainy Friday afternoon, I did 
enjoy myself as we shared stories of something 
we both love doing. And I was able to relax 
because I knew we had each chosen to be in 
that place at that time, listening to one another. 
“Both parties sign up for our service,” Argo 
says. “So both parties want to meet someone 
new. … That eliminates a lot of the anxiety we 
feel when we don’t know if someone actually 
wants us to talk to them.”

Overall, the response to Argo has been 

very positive: “We don’t personally know the 
majority of students who signed up for friend-
dates, and that’s been really validating because 
it tells us that yes, there is a problem, and Argo 
might be the way to solve it.”

Ultimately, they want to help people 

recognize that there are others out there who 
feel the same way they do — who understand 
how, without a class or club to provide a 
connection, starting conversations might seem 
a little weird.

“You can’t just strike up a conversation 

with the person next to you at the dining hall 
without getting, at least in some way, a ‘why 
are you talking to me?’ vibe,” Argo explains. 
It’s hard to turn strangers into friends, and 
Argo understands this — it’s what spawned 
the idea for the organization in the first place. 
As students become comfortable with Argo, 
and as it becomes a part of the culture here 
on campus, the organization aims to continue 
expanding its reach by taking the openness it 
promotes outside the boundaries of friend-
dates. “Eventually, our hope is that after 
using Argo a handful of times, students will 
learn that they can talk to anyone, and even 
more so, that they should.” 

For more information and to stay up to date 

on their project, visit them on Facebook at Argo 
UMich, or email argoumich@gmail.com.

Susan LaMoreaux can be reached 

at susanpl@umich.edu. 

SUSAN 

LAMOREAUX

Bloomberg 2016?

BRETT 
GRAHAM

The University of Michigan-Ann 

Arbor is testing new approaches 
to recruit and enroll more high-
achieving, 
low-income 
students 

from across the state. But will these 
efforts be enough to attract and 
retain students — most of whom are 
the first in their families to attend 
college? To illustrate low-income, 
first-gen 
student 
experiences, 

imagine Eve — the daughter of 
factory 
workers 
— 
graduating 

high school as class valedictorian. 
She is the oldest of three children 
and her parents have combined 
yearly incomes of $35,000. Eve has 
been accepted to the University of 
Michigan and she loves Wolverine 
football.

When her financial aid package 

arrives, Eve sees both scholarship 
and work-study offers — neither 
will have to be paid back. However, 
she will need substantial tuition 
loans over four years. This worries 
her parents, but she is determined 
to enroll in her dream college and 
eventually attend medical school.

By early November of her first 

year, 
Eve 
realizes 
significant 

differences between her and her 
peers. New friends have travelled 
overseas on multiple family trips and 
everyone has plenty of extra money 
to buy things like football tickets. 
She will not be watching football in 
the Big House. Her roommate, the 
daughter of a cardiovascular surgeon 
and a trial attorney, is surprised Eve’s 
parents are blue-collar workers. 
Others proudly announce they will 
leave college with very little debt. 
How can this be? Eve wonders. 
But when she learns from her 
sociology professor that 36 percent 
of Michigan freshmen have family 
yearly incomes more than $200,000, 
she understands. 

Eve 
is 
doing 
very 
well 
in 

her 
classes, 
especially 
organic 

chemistry, 
but 
is 
feeling 
self-

conscious and rather exotic. Did she 
make the right decision to attend 

a college where she feels so out of 
place? Are there any other first-
gens? Does Michigan even recognize 
students like her? Is there a place to 
go and talk about her adjustment 
difficulties?

To help address financial struggles 

for students like Eve, Michigan has 
recently announced a pilot two-year 
scholarship called High Achieving 
Involved Leader for qualified, low-
income Michigan students. HAIL 
pays four years of tuition and covers 
$60,000 of necessary fees. Students, 
parents and guardians, high school 
principals and counselors at 259 
Michigan public schools (rural, 
suburban and urban) all receieved 
HAIL information last fall.

Another 
hands-on 
program 

recognizing economic challenges is 
a new LSA laptop computer policy. 
Low-income LSA students can loan 
laptops — at no charge — for the 
duration of their four years of study. 
This initiative will likely continue in 
the future and could be a significant 
resource for HAIL students and 
other incoming freshmen.

We 
hope 
other 
colleges 
— 

Engineering, Business and Nursing, 
for example — initiate similar 
policies because buying a computer 
can be a major financial burden for 
lower-income families.

We 
celebrate 
initiatives 
to 

help talented, low-income, first-
gen 
students 
pay 
for 
college, 

but we wonder if the University 
will also provide the necessary 
social support structures. Will 
the University assist low-income 
students in feeling comfortable 
on a campus where 89 percent 
of students have parents with a 
college degree, and likely much 
higher household incomes?

Research 
tells 
us 
that 

economically 
disadvantaged 

students — both white students 
and 
students 
of 
color 
— 
on 

predominantly 
middle-and 

upper-middle-class 
campuses, 

like Michigan, often feel isolated. 
Attending a highly selective college 
is the initial stage in the difficult 
process of upward mobility — 
widely encouraged and celebrated 
in American culture. But this can 
be very complicated for students 
as 
they 
pull 
away 
from 
the 

working-class communities that 
carefully nurtured them. Colleges 
like Michigan become portals to 
unfamiliar economically privileged 
experiences 
and 
futures. 
Will 

HAIL recognize these well-known 
facts and help students achieve a 
sense of belonging — especially in 
their first two years of college?

Could a new First Generation 

Student 
Office, 
for 
example, 

provide highly visible recognition 
that 
low-income 
students 
are 

present and supported on campus? 
An office could offer first-gens 
space to meet and help promote 
academic and personal success. 
Other universities have recognized 
these first-gen challenges.

Five 
years 
ago, 
Stanford 

University established a Diversity 
and First-Gen Office that helps 
direct 
first-gens 
to 
needed 

resources (e.g. academic advising 
and 
career 
planning). 
Highly 

selective campuses can feel quite 
foreboding for those who have 
grown up in the working and lower 
classes. Parents and students look 
to the University of Michigan, 
with its considerable resources, for 
leadership in providing essential 
support networks for low-income, 
first-generation students as they 
pursue their American dreams. 

Dwight Lang teaches in the Sociology 

Department at the University of 

Michigan-Ann Arbor and is faculty 

adviser to the department-sponsored 

undergraduate group “First Generation 

College Students @ Michigan.” Candice 

Miller, from River Rouge, Mich., 

is a sophomore in the College of 

Literature, Science and the Arts.

Class diversity needs more than scholarships

DWIGHT LANG AND CANDICE MILLER | OP-ED 

E-mail JoE at Jiovino@umich.Edu
JOE IOVINO

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