California's Presidential Primary: Q&A with Melissa Michelson

By Bill Bennett 

Menlo Oak Staff

Melissa Michelson is a political science professor at Menlo College. Naturally this makes her a great person to speak with about the upcoming presidential election in the United States. I emailed her with a short list of questions regarding the election to clear up any uncertainties people may have.

1) Why are the presidential primaries important?
They are important because they determine who the nominees will be in November. Specifically, this year, there is a heated battle on the Republican side to determine who will run against President Obama. Beyond that, the decision will impact the future direction of the Republican Party.


2) Is there still time to register to vote in California
Yes, there is plenty of time to register. In California you can do so until 15 days before the election.

3) Are the Republican primaries closed elections in California or can anyone vote?
Republican primaries in California are open to both Republicans and also to those registered as "Decline to State" (unaffiliated).

4) How how important is the California decision compared to the rest of the country?
The importance of the California vote varies by year. In 2008, it wasn't important because we held our presidential primary in February and it was still too early to swing the race to either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. In 2012, we're holding our primary in June, but Mitt Romney may have enough delegates by then to clinch the nomination. Or he may still be battling it out with Rick Santorum. It's too early to say.

5) You were recently featured on TV for an interview. Can you tell me about what you talked about?
I'm interviewed by the media from time to time. The last television interview concerned an announcement by the GOP about their new strategy for wooing Latino voters. I spoke about the opportunities and challenges they would face.


The links provided below will take you to the California voter registration web page. Any information regarding the election can be found here.
An FAQ with common questions and answers is available here
The voter registration form can be downloaded or filled out online here

Partial Power Outage Disrupts Campus Email, Activities

A power outage that lasted nearly six hours on Monday left parts of the Menlo College campus in the dark and disrupted the school's email and other Internet-based services.

The outage started shortly before 11 a.m. with the library losing power. The library is where some of the schools computer servers are housed. Because of the outage, Internet programs  such as MyMenlo, Jenzabar, and Internet-based campus services such as the cafeteria's meal plan system were unavailable.

The power outage left  parts of the Florence Moore Building in the dark. Students also reported difficulty accessing the Internet from their dorm rooms. 

The electricity was working in Brawner Hall, but students and faculty reported having difficulty connecting to the Internet.

In the library, librarians were sitting in the darkness, chatting with each other and trying to read. The rooms were completely empty. Some of the librarians talked about going home. Since the library is completely electronic, they couldn't work.

Across the campus Monday morning,  students were frantically looking for working printers so they print out their assignments.

Students who had work to submit via email, such as senior Kaila Lunn, were left wondering if they would be able to meet their deadlines. 

“All the work I had done I had to submit through the school’s email,” said Lunn.  “And even though I was able to find access to the Internet, the Menlo email system was still not working.”

Throughout the day, people asked one another if they able to get online. Tension was noticeable when Menlo community members realized there was no Internet connection.

Power was restored shortly before 5 p.m. In an email, Menlo's Chief Information Officer, Raechelle Clemmons wrote that IT services were also being brought back  online.

"We will use this outage as an opportunity to look at creating less multi-building interconnectivity and more redundancy, where possible, so we won't have situations where services continue to run but are inaccessible because of an outage elsewhere on campus," Clemmons added.

Anthony Foster and Bill Bennett contributed to this story.