2 ■ October 2003
f the stentorian f.ncssm
What the Democrats J^editeaUtt to
Win the Upcoming ElectiQn
u.r
Jonathan Smith
W hile President Bush
raises capital for the
upcoming 2004
election, the democrats are
scrambling to find a suitable
candidate. So far they have
eight men and one woman
(Edwards, Kerry, Dean,
Gephardt, Lieberman,
Graham, Sharpton, Braun, and
Kucinich) vying for the job.
Regardless of which candidate
gets it, there are a number of
fundamental things that the
Democrats must do in 2004:
Cooperate. Internal rival
ries are one of the Democrats
main downfalls now. The party
lacks clear leadership. If the
squabbling lasts past the pri
mary, the party will never get
the votes it needs from the
center; American elections are
won and lost on the parties'
ability to coerce the non-poht-
ically affiliated to vote for
them or against their opponent.
Clinton won because he
was the "New Democrat;" it
seems that the party is drifting
more left with every passing
day. While this may be a tem
porary phenomenon, history
has shown that the Democrats
cannot always get their act
together by election time.
Make the party line clear.
The party must stand for
something; if not, then why
bother to change the status
quo? If the Democrats are seri
ous about winning, then they
must adopt a stance on every
issue, and stand by it.
Play on Bush's weakness;-
es. If the Democrats would
come, out in opposition to the
war in Iraq, and argue against
it at every turn, pointing out
the fact , that no Weapons of
Mass Destruction have been
found, then the American peo
ple would feel that Bush has
lied to them.
On .a related note, the
Democrats must point out that
the economj' has suffered
under Bush's presidency. The
main way to win elections is to
hit people where it hurts: in the
pocketbook.
Raise money^ Elections
are won and lost by the .budget
of the party.
All in all, the Democrats
will have a difficult time win
ning the presidential election
ofj,*2004. However, if ..tiie
Democrats will play on Bush's
weaknesses and find ways t6
raise capital, they , will at least
have a chance.
■ IS the first'^n a
series dealing^ with the upcom-
irfg 2004 Presidential election,
the next in the seriey is "Wjiat
Bush Needs to Do to mn the
-Eteetion't ■
http://udel.edu/stu-org/democrats/kicker2.jpg
Jt. II
5 ^ ’
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■ii €:■ W." '• T
Steve and Bill’s Method of Madness for the PC
“Steve and Bill”
from Frontpage
primarily responsible for his
entrance into the realm of the
super-rich): the licensing of
^ftwafb'. Gafd^tbldlBM th'dt
Microsoft had written an oper
ating system custom-tailored
to run on the IBM PC, a Disk
Operating System (DOS) that
could be used to access and
maintain all of the IBM
machine's ftmctions and appli
cations with ease. He also
informed the company that
they would be allowed to use
DOS, but not buy it: if IBM
was to sell their PC using
Gates' OS, they would have to
pay royalties to Microsoft for
every box sold. IBM agreed
to the deal, believing that the
market for DOS would be
small and that the men at
Microsoft were digging their
own graves.
Flashback to the Altair.
Not surprisingly. Gates turned
out to be a man of habit: at the
time of the licensing, DOS
didn't exist. Twice now, this
entrepreneur had managed to
obtain money for a product he
had not yet devised.
However, armed with
$20,000, Paul Allen
approached another software
start-up who had produced a
program called QDOS (Quick
& Dirty Operating System)
and purchased it. Re-branded
MS-DOS, this product (NOT
written by our dear friend
Gates) was the source of
Microsoft's millions. After the
IBM PC, MS-DOS rolled out
to consumers on an assortment
of machines, with Gates col
lecting cash 'll along the way.
[■•uring Gates' moment of
gloi ! 'bs \vas running into
trouble. Apple had been
unable to produce anything as
successful as the Apple II (the
Apple III and the Lisa
machines were both total mar
ket* . failures)/ - Jobs- .knew- > he
needed something radical and
different to keep his company
alive, and salvation came with
the conception of the
Macintosh.
While visiting the Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center,
Jobs and Woz discovered the
Graphical User Interface, or
GUI. In MS-DOS, as well as
the original Apples, users
typed their commands directly
into the machine with a key
board. The GUI
worked in a fun
damentally dif
ferent manner:
users moved
away from the
keyboard to a
"mouse," which
they used to
manipulate
something called
a "desktop" with
"icons". Jobs
was blown away
by the friendli
ness of the GUI,
and, with visions
of the future
Macintosh
whirling in his
head, would not leave PARC
without a prototype. A devel
opment team was created, and
work began with the goal of
replacing IBM's new
machines and returning Apple
to its former place as the fore
front PC manufacturer. The
Macintosh was to be smaller,
faster, have more memory
(128kb!) and, through the
GUI, be far easier to use than
DOS machines. The Mac was
.scheduled for release in 1984,
and would almost certaijply
have brought Appier to /Ihe
throne once more, had it not
been for some unexpected
attention'from a little software-
company called Microsoft.
Gates (his partner Allen
having resigned and moved on
to sunny beaches) approached
Jobs personally in 1983, want
ing to know what Apple was
working on. Gates led Jobs to
believe that he wanted to
develop software for Apple, as
he had for Altair and IBM.
Jobs, not recognizing the trap,
led Gates to a prototype
Macintosh. Gates was
The outcome of the madness.
stunned - impressed and afraid
of being left behind in the
market - but he covered it
well, convincing Jobs that he
wanted to develop products
for the Mac, and managing to
leave with several prototypes
to work on.
Enter the Silicon Valley
term "pirate." Shortly before
the release of the Mac, Jobs
caught wind of a prototype
version Windows, a new OS
being developed by Microsoft
: - without any previous men
tioning to Apple; of its future
sale. Windows, was to be a
GUI like Mac, only it ran like
• an appHcatioii -oit top'of DOS;':
When confronted by Jobs,
Gates soothed him and
claimed; that Microsoft was
devoted to the Mac and not
copying anything Apple was
doing. The Macintosh was
unveiled during the famous
1984 Superbowl ad, featuring
IBM as George Orwell's Big’
Brother and Apple as the ath
lete. destroying the system., t
"You'll see why 1984 won4 be
. like ,1984," However, it wasn't
IBM that Apple
had to worry
about
r-5,;.Gates- had
both. promised
and f. delivered'
several! Ir prod’-;
ucts; for the
Mac, but still:
managed :,,to-;
push out;
Windows with
in a little over a
year of its
release in the
fall of '85.
Windows 1.0
looked eerily
Logan Couce Mac OS 1
in both features
and usability, but Jobs was
. unable to land a lawsuit, since
Microsoft held that their inter
face was derived not from
Apple but from Xerox. Since
the Mac OS was derived from
Xerox as well. Jobs would be
as guilty as Gates, and thus the
suit was dropped after years of
legal struggle.
Gates stole the Mae's
thunder quite easily; _cpmpa-
nies that were accustomed to
running DOS found it far e|S- .
ier to switch to Windows tl^
to Mac OS. Apple found itself
cut out of the corporate market
again, though it did retain a
wide following:amo5igstJK?me’'
graphics users and desktop
publishers. After the Mac's
failure to recapture the mar
ket, Jobs left Apple under
duress, whereupon he founded
Pixar (maker of Toy Story,
Monsters Inc., and Finding
Nemo), of which he is still
CEO. He returned to a nearly
bankrupt Apple in 1997, and’
since then has returned the
company to the path of suci
cess, introducing first -.the
iMac, then the iBook, the
ItowerMac G4 ‘and G5 series,
as Well ,as: The iPod, :the most
popular mp3. playbr ' on the:
market today.! '. Gates, on the
other hand, became the richest
man on earth, and'his compa-r
ny is still among the most
influential in the technological
world. ' ■ .Is' ;' '
■Windows, easily the num
ber one OS worldwide today,
nevertheless faces future bat
tles against the likes of inex-
pensive/free and openly avail
able versions of Linux and the
mixture of power and usabili
ty found in Apple's OS X.
Apple, on the other hand, must
continue to work to pull itself
from the hole created through
a decade of poor management
and a rough reputation.
Ironically, one can view the
two most powerful computer
companies in America and
foresee an uncertain future for
each. If any two men can
guide the Personal Computer
to its future incarnations, they
are Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,
pf Microsoft and Apple, Inc.