The People Have Spoken

Down goes Brokman! Down goes Brokman!

Perhaps most people aren’t quite as enthusiastic as Howard Cossell, but there was certainly a large group in opposition to Andrew Brokman that spent their Friday evening poppin’ bottles.  If the swarm of list-serv emails I received endorsing Vincent Andrews or the general underground turbulence created by Res. 44 didn’t give it away, Friday’s election results sure did.  Andrews received 1,626 votes and Brokman received 1,282 (a 56-44% win).  While Brokman attributes the loss to Andrews’s advantageous social position and a pseudo-cabal of conspirators working against him (I would quote more accurately but his post on this matter at OneCornell seems to have disappeared), perhaps there could be more at play.

Is it not possible that Resolution 44 is the giant elephant on Brokman’s mind?  The very thing that got  him on the pages of the Stun each and every day for the two weeks preceding the elections?  The very thing that made Brokman a ‘dorm’-hold name?  That drove him to speaking at numerous organizations, groups and committees? Resolution 44 was the Brokman banner that he waved everywhere he campaigned, spoke, quoted, and wrote.  ‘Non-discrimination’ was the campaign catchphrase that he was known for – whether he intended it or not.

Our election here at Cornell is not only significant for the proceedings on Campus; it is a microcosm version of an ever-present dilemma in politics and media.  An idea was pushed – a very controversial one – and forced as the only reasonable option upon us by mainstream media.  We were incessantly bombarded with support for and reasons why Resolution 44 was the next best thing since sliced bread.  How opposition to it was irresponsible and immoral – how vital it was to our campus that it should take precedence over basic constitutional rights.  If one were to just read our school’s flagship paper each day, he or she would be convinced everyone and everything at Cornell was in support of the resolution.  Yet the icon of that resolution failed.

It is a classic case of a minority opinion blown out of proportion – made to appear as the majority one.  Many people are disgusted by the idea of Resolution 44.  Most people are hesitant about it.  But the power-hungry and ravenous Left is out of touch.  Just as Obama’s Health Care dies in its tracks, Massachusetts goes Red, and Olbermann gets clobbered in TV ratings, Brokman, The Daily Stun, and Resolution 44 have experienced the people’s referendum on bad ideas.

More to come on this subject in next week’s issue of The Review!