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Campus caucus

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

There were piles of leaflets and bumper stickers set out on a table, bowls brimming with patriotic pencils and candies, and even a life-sized cutout of President Bush tucked in a corner.
Juliano, president of the Iona College Republicans, was ready to settle in for the debate party that he and his Democratic counterpart, Jessica Diedalis, had planned.
While there was no cutout of candidate John Kerry, the Democrat’s supporters were no less interested in the debate. The sizable group was scattered around the room, some wielding notebooks, squeezing in a few minutes of studying before moderator Jim Lehrer could toss out the first question.
Just then, a few errant members of the women’s lacrosse team wandered in, only to leave soon after they realized all the free pizza was long gone.
This is college, after all.
It is a scene being played out at schools across the nation as Nov. 2 creeps closer.
Thanks to the hotly contested presidential election, colleges are slowly regaining reputations as hotbeds of political thought. Politicians, in turn, have taken notice.
As a demographic, college students are increasingly seen as a vital pool of volunteers who can spread a candidate’s message throughout campuses.
Many campus-based political groups are gearing up for the last weeks before the election by hosting debate-watching parties, holding voter-registration drives and bringing guest speakers to campus.
Things are no different at some traditionally Irish colleges, such as Iona. About a 20-minute drive from Midtown Manhattan, Iona was founded by the Christian Brothers. One needs only to pull into the Murphy parking lot or catch a game at the Mulcahy Events Center to spot the Irish influence.
Iona boasts an active Republican Club, headed by Juliano, a second-year political science and criminal justice major. “We have to work hard at such a liberal college,” he said of his four-year-old organization. “It’s hard to get people to agree with us. We’re lucky we have what we have.”
Even with the perception that sympathy for the current administration is dwindling among young voters, the Iona Republicans remained the sole political group on campus until Diedalis started the Democrat Club last spring to, as she put it, “combat political apathy on campus.”
“Together, we’ve managed to establish a good work rapport,” Juliano said, laughing.
“People are starting to come out of the woodwork,” added Diedalis.
According to a survey conducted in September by CBS News on behalf of the Pew Center’s Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement, and the youth magnet MTV, Kerry is holding a slim lead when the plus-or-minus-3-percent margin of error is factored in. Forty-six percent of the 876 18-29-year-olds polled favor Kerry, while 40 percent favor Bush.
To hear students tell it, this is shaping up to be an important election. The poll shows that student interest is at its highest point since the election after the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971.
“I definitely feel more of a connection to this election,” said Iona student Brendan Droge, a math and finance major from Long Island. “I’ve been really surprised by the interest on campus.
“I think a lot of people are like me, and have now noticed how important this really is.”
In true college form, some students on Thursday were at the Isle Coffee Shop, an off-campus establishment run by the school, for little else but a free hot meal.
“I heard there was going to be pizza,” one disappointed Ionian said before heading out the door after the food had run out.
Interlopers didn’t spoil the party for those there to watch the debate. A group of about 35 students were intently watching the candidates trade jabs.
“I can’t honestly say I know all of the issues at hand,” Droge said. “But I’m definitely going to vote. That’s why I’m here.”
Shannon Coholan, a public-relations major from Syracuse, was also watching the debate on Thursday.
“I’m here now to inform myself because this will be my first presidential election,” she said.
Coholan said she has been involved with the on-campus push to register voters.
“We’ve done a lot in terms of getting the message out about the importance of this election,” she said, “but in the past three months, I have never seen anything like this.”

Nationwide interest
At Boston College, a liberal arts college founded by Jesuits that maintains a strong Irish connection, Justin Galacki, a finance and accounting double major, is president of the Boston College Democrats. “We’ve seen incredible growth within the club, as we have grown at the rate of almost 50 percent,” he said.
There are now more than 1,000 members, which Galacki called “unprecedented, compared to where we were only three or four years ago.”
“It is not surprising that people are beginning to figure out where they stand on the political spectrum,” he said.
Both Galacki and Iona’s Diedalis have noticed an increase in younger students getting involved.
“I think it stems from the fact that students are entering college and feel that they can really start to express themselves,” Galacki said.
Even with an increase in interest regarding this election, apathy is often associated with the 18-24 set.
Galacki blames muddled issues for youth indifference.
“Students get interested when the issues start applying more to them,” he said. “In the 2000 election, you saw low student interest because many of the top issues revolved around social security, Medicare, gun control laws. These are not the issues that generally drive students to the polls.”
He expects to see a change of heart this year. “When students see that they can’t have health insurance when they graduate, or when they can’t get a job when they graduate . . . that will drive them to the polls,” he said.
The CBS poll backs him up. It cites that 35 percent of those polled feel the economy is the most important issue in this election, with terrorism and the war in Iraq a distant second. Perhaps more cryptic were the 58 percent who think the country has “gone seriously off track.”
Coholan cites a visible campaign outside of campuses as a motive to combat apathy among young people.
“It’s definitely hard to motivate students, but in this election even celebrities are getting involved, urging for those in the 18-to-24 range to get out and vote,” she said.
She cited rapper P. Diddy’s “Vote or Die” campaign, aimed at the young vote, which counts singer Mariah Carey and actor Ben Affleck among supporters.
“The incentive for students would be for them to realize that the one vote does matter, that they need to go to the polls and vote for something,” she stressed.
CBS’s poll mentioned how college students are far more likely to vote than other 18-to-24-year-olds, and campuses are fully behind the movement.
Many colleges have begun distributing voter registration information during freshman seminars and orientations, and others have worked to bring prominent politicians to speak to students.
Boston College has scheduled four political events within the next week, including a visit from former presidential candidate Howard Dean.
The Bronx’s Fordham University, another traditionally Irish institution, developed a voter education section in the student newspaper. The president, the Rev. Joseph M. McShane, has sent a letter to the campus community on the importance of registration and voting.
Elizabeth Olivieri, director of student activities at Iona, noted, “It is encouraging to see college students working together with the greater goal of educating their peers.”
Student organizations “are working hard to show that they can defy the stereotypes society places on them,” she said.
Coholan notes that while Iona is “officially an Irish-Catholic school, there is such diversity on campus that it is more liberal that you would think,” she said. “Or they’re just uninformed. That’s what we are working to change.”
The youth harbingers at MTV have branded the group of 18-to-30-year-olds who they estimate didn’t vote in the 2000 election as “20 Million Loud.” Calling on them to vote this time around for “something — anything,” the future of American politics is banking on most of them to show up at the polls in November. But have they considered the lure of free pizza?

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