The Only Good Politician is a...Republican?

Good afternoon! It feels great to say that now that I'm not writing this in the middle of the night/Wednesday morning. I hope that the end of everyone's semester is going well. Since it probably actually matters that you guys study this week, I'll try to keep this brief and easy to read.

So I guess I'm trying to use finals as an excuse to not write very much, but the fact of the matter is, I really don't have too much to discuss this week. Tiger Woods is still the main news story basically everywhere, so I had to dig really deep to find this week's non-sports story. I chanced upon this one, which I found quite interesting. It's about the gradually lessening disdain that New Yorkers have for Gov. David Paterson. His favorability rating is up to 36%, the highest that it's been in a while. However, he'll apparently need to increase that by quite a bit more by election time next year to earn the Democratic nomination to run for reelection. I'm going to go back a bit- 1994, Republican George Pataki is elected governor of New York, one of the most Democratic states in the country. He is elected quite easily to second and third terms and declined to run anymore. This opened the door for Eliot Spitzer to win the next election, so 2006 gave us our first Democratic governor in 12 years. How does he reward the voters? About a year after his election he is busted for being caught in a prostitution ring. After being the most outspoken opponent to said rings. Not only that, but everyone started to hate his replacement, David Paterson, pretty darn quick too.

The whole roundabout point I'm trying to make here is: politics, what the hell? It was confusing enough to figure out how someone could win a presidential election with the other guy getting more votes. Now even party lines are becoming blurred. That was the one constant for politics in my (not very highly trained) view. Republicans stuck with Republicans, Democrats hobnobbed with Democrats. But looking back at New York, they absolutely loved their Republican governor and all of the new Democratic governors are becoming quickly the most hated men in the state. But, come presidential election time, nobody even bothers to campaign here because it's guaranteed to vote Democrat. I don't get it.

But, for something I do understand, Syracuse basketball continues to dominate on the court. We played Florida, undefeated and #11 in the country, on Thursday if you didn't know. Managed to beat them by 12 points too, despite Florida's uncanny ability to make impossible shots. I swear, this wouldn't have been out of place in the game:

Announcer: Boynton [Florida player] brings the ball up, stops about 50 feet from the basket. He pulls out a blindfold, ties it on. Throws the ball behind his back, it bounces off the scoreboard...and good! Three points! Thats the 34th behind the back shot that Florida's made in the last 5 minutes.

But no worries, Cuse pulled it out. And let's face it, they play up to their competition. When St. Francis (NY) came to town, we only won by like 24 points. Luckily for us fans, Kris Joseph came up with a monster slam dunk to get us to 75 points and free tacos. Looming opponents include St. Bonaventure and Oakland. St. Bonaventure: Why don't you man up and rename yourself after a saint with a cooler name. Oakland: Nobody even knows where you are. There is no Oakland in Michigan.

I hate to end on a serious note, but I came across a saying this week that I found highly inspirational and just awesome in general. "The only difference between our secrets is whether we allow them to evolve into tales of heroism or fear." Good luck on finals everyone!