The Campaign for Change

Students canvass for Senators Obama and McCain

By Aleksandra Karabasevic & Sara B. Towne

“Youth” and “activism,” though hundreds of pages apart in the dictionary, are historically closely linked. And rarely has the youth been so active as it is now, in the run-up to the current election. College students all across the country, fired up by the young Democratic candidate (or terrified that he might win), are taking a special interest in this election. Harvard students are no exception. Students for Obama, headed by Audrey White, and Students for McCain, under the leadership of Colin Motley, are encouraging Harvard students all across the political spectrum to get involved. 

Students for Obama, said White, endeavors “to inspire people to take action, and organize events themselves, as well as attending our larger events.” The group recruited freshman and upperclassmen at the activities fair, and then followed up with them by what White refers to as “dorm-storming – going to dorm rooms, talking to people about our activities and inviting people to get involved.” 

She adds, “Several older members of the Harvard Democrats have been meeting with the new freshmen in one-on-one meetings, encouraging them to organize events themselves and spread the word of how to be involved with the campaign. Our efforts have also included reaching out to other student groups; several cultural and progressive groups have co-sponsored a canvass trip to New Hampshire and sent their members up.”

Students for McCain do not dorm-storm to raise interest in the McCain campaign. They operate on a much smaller scale than their liberal counterpart, because Harvard—along with more or less every other college in America—has far fewer conservative students than liberal. Instead, Students for McCain functions as a branch of the Harvard Republican Club, which has about 100 dues-paying members. 

Colin Motley, President of HRC, explained their initiatives: “We’ve done a lot here at Harvard to get people excited about the campaign. The campaign trips are one obvious attraction, but we’ve also hosted a few speakers as supporters of McCain, including former Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci and Al Felzenberg, Deputy for Communications of the 9/11 Commission. Additionally, we’ve worked to provide social events to our members, including a debate-watching party for the VP debate (complete with Klondike bars) and a planned post-election celebration party.”

And as Election Day gets closer, these groups become more active and their events more frequent. The Dems are currently, “working with H-Vote to ensure that students are registered to vote and request an absentee ballot for the election. We’re also organizing a series of debates and speakers to inform students about the issues in this election,” said White. 

“We’ve chosen to focus our energies in states where the race is tight, and our efforts can have the greatest impact. Every Tuesday, we phonebank to Colorado on behalf of the Obama Campaign as well as Mark Udall, who is engaged in a Senatorial election there. Then on Saturdays, we head up to New Hampshire to canvass for Barack Obama, Jeanne Shaheen and Carol Shea Porter for a day. For Columbus Day weekend, we sent people down to Pennsylvania to volunteer in Bucks County, which has been a crucial district in recent elections. On Get-Out-The-Vote efforts (the weekend of November 1 and 2nd, as well as the 3rd and the 4th) we will be running buses to New Hampshire every day so that students can help with the democratic efforts there.” 

So far the turnout has been, at least according to White, astounding. “The amount of enthusiasm on campus has blown away my expectations. Students have been coming to New Hampshire in droves. On our first weekend, over 150 people woke up early in the morning, boarded a bus to New Hampshire and knocked on 3,400 doors. That is a phenomenal turn out. And many of the students making phone calls and knocking on doors with the Dems have never volunteered before, but they realize that this election will make a big difference in their lives and are getting involved.”

The Obama campaign is fortunate that there’s such a big turnout for canvassing events, because in White’s opinion, “Canvassing trips are the best way to make a difference in the election. You have the opportunity to speak to someone in person about the issues that they think are important, and to tell them about how your candidate will make a difference. Your conversation provides a human face for the campaign. You get a real sense of how people feel about the candidates, the direction of the country, and the election, and it’s an amazing rush when someone tells you that they are voting for Barack Obama. On a small level, every person can make an impact by voting, which will ultimately make the difference in the election.”

Students for McCain have campaigned similarly for McCain. “We’re campaigning on an almost constant basis—taking weekly phone banking trips, going almost every weekend by bus to New Hampshire, hosting speaker events, and representing McCain on campus in various forums, debates, and discussion series. In fact, we’ve already made more than 3,000 phone calls and knocked on over 1,000 doors of New Hampshire voters in an effort to take back New Hampshire for the Republican Party,” said Motley.

He continued, “The past month or so, we’ve kept up a pretty steady slate of two to three events per week, ranging from General Meetings of the HRC to debates against the Democrats to campaign trips to speaker events. Attendance varies at each of these events, but a good average number of participants would be about twenty five to thirty.”

Students for McCain offers a wide variety of events because, “It’s really hard to say what’s most effective. People enjoy talking in a friendly setting about the candidates and their plans, which is exactly what a General Meeting or social event offers. But they also enjoy hitting the pavement and being involved in the campaign, so our campaign trips offer a great way to do that. And of course, everyone enjoys hearing from big-name speakers, too,” explained Motley.

So why is there such election activism among college kids? Two words: Barack Obama. There’s no one issue that’s galvanizing Democratic or Republican youth to action—one person is. The Democrats campaign because they worry that Obama might not get elected; the Republicans because they worry he will. 

“Different students care about various issues in differing degrees,” said White, when asked what she thought was the most important election issue to college kids. “The common thread is that students recognize that the outcome of this election will shape the world for our generation and the next generations. Our generation is the one that will inherit the Bush legacy of a failing economy, a broken health care system, skyrocketing budget deficits, and a reckless foreign policy that’s eroded America’s moral standing in the world. Students are involved in this election because they see the need for change, and they work for Barack Obama because he offers that change.”

On this issue, Democrats and Republicans saw eye-to-eye. Motley agreed with White—no one issue is responsible for the mass activism on college campuses. “In many ways, college kids care about the same issues that face our country as a whole. The deepening economic downturn, the continued threat of terrorism and other challenges abroad, and an urgent energy crisis are all issues that impact our lives as college students directly, whether through the options we have available for employment after school, how safe we feel in traveling or studying abroad, or the exorbitant cost of flights home for the holiday.”

But, according to Motley, we college students do have “a special interest in needing to maintain the runaway costs of entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. Ultimately, our generation is the one that will be left to foot the bill, and unless sensible reforms are enacted, that bill may well be a staggeringly painful sum.”

There’s no question that the election of 2008 is generating an interest in politics on college campuses unseen since the Reagan years. But questions remain: Who’s going to win, and, more importantly, will the youth vote matter?