Our State Sen. Rick Winkel, R-52nd, announced his retirement last week, and he will most assuredly be missed. His talent and innovation were an inspiration, and he forever changed the landscape of rock and roll, whether it was through his bands Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan, or through his tireless work to support local music in his hometown of Chicago.

Wait, I think I’m confusing Rick Winkel with Billy Corgan. That’s pretty easy to do, since the two are so similar.

The truth is, Winkel’s actions as a legislator drove me absolutely monkey-nuts. I hated when he fought against increased stem-cell research, when he fought against choice and when he fought against a minimum wage increase. In fact, it seemed like all he ever did was stand against things, and I much prefer guys who get things done, even if they’re the wrong things, to the guys who always say “no.”

So, I naturally celebrated after Winkel’s announcement. But somewhere through my whiskey-soaked haze, I realized that this celebration might not be all that natural. In fact, it might not even make much sense. After all, will a Winkel-less General Assembly really change the world? Aren’t there bigger fishes to fry? What about Rick Santorum, Bill Frist and even Dubya? I’ve seen how this campus votes, I’m sure most of you would agree that George W. Bush is at least as bad at being President as Winkel is at being a state senator.

Yet, I can’t deny that there’s a lot of intense emotion attached to local politicians. This is one of the mysterious disconnects between local and national politics. I know that far more people know the president than their state senator, and I know this because I just heard you say, “Rick who?” But, I believe that in the cases where we do know our local officials, our feelings for them are much stronger. After all, the College Republicans have protested Naomi Jakobsson before, but not Barack Obama.

I can only hazard a guess as to why this is how things work, but here goes: a lot of the time, local decisions have a lot more tangible results for the average person. When Winkel votes to cut University funds, I can see the effects right away. National decisions, though, seem a little more abstract. I don’t necessarily feel the effects of a bad decision Bush makes. Then again, maybe that’s a bad example. I’m a white, upper-middle class, Christian, heterosexual male, and thus I am hardly ever screwed over by the Bush Administration. This isn’t by any means to take away from the importance of national issues; I’m just saying it might take a little while before we can point out specific effects in our daily life.

Local politicians are also, by their very definition, closer. They pay more attention to us, out of political necessity, sure, but our anger (or, far more rarely, our praise) registers louder. National politicians are more remote, and don’t seem to care as much.

I would, of course, still like to see the other Ricky, Billy and Georgie sent to early retirements, too. And thanks to the voters of Pennsylvania, a campaign promise and the 25th Amendment, I probably will. But that wouldn’t give me the giddy, visceral thrill I got from getting rid of a local politician I dislike. And that’s fine. Sometimes, small victories are all you get, but sometimes, that’s enough.

P.S.- I didn’t want to devote an entire column to this, but I would like to acknowledge the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Anything else I could say would be trite at best and insulting at worst, so I’d just like to strongly urge all of you with the means to give to the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, or any of the many other organizations that are already helping rebuild.

Craig Colbrook is senior in Communications and is Vice President of College Democrats. His column appears every Friday. He can be reached at [email protected].