With less than two weeks until Nov. 7, there are some important lessons to be learned from Election 2000. Apathy abounds on campus not because people are uninformed, but because elections resolve more than age-old national policy debates. No amount of Viewpoints could ever engender enthusiasm about this democratic process, if activists don't first learn that very local issues, like how a universities are represented in Washington D.C. is affected by candidates, are what engage young voters.
This election hasn't been particularly kind to Tufts. The University holds substantial ties in the nations capital - mostly on the Democratic side. Since Gore is having significant trouble for a functional incumbent in prosperous times, Tufts stands to lose many of these connections with his defeat. For example, two trustees of the University, Jonathan Tisch and Alan Solomont, are major players in the Democratic party; they'll likely lose the ear of the White House in this election. Bill Richardson, the embattled secretary of energy and a proud Tufts graduate, has little chance of resurrecting his Washington career with a Gore loss, after widely reported gaffes with nuclear secrets.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, certainly not our proudest alumnus, but nonetheless a great Tufts name, is leaving the US Senate. And the rumors that President DiBiaggio would serve in an administration post if Bill Richardson could use any remaining pull for such productive things, doesn't seem likely in the impending Bush administration.
As discouraging as this kind of information may be, some student groups are salvaging the election by engaging students in dialogue. The only issue to engage Tufts students, however, is the not-so-amazing coincidence that Boston police are cracking down on college students in an election year. This surely makes a popular platform in towns like Medford and Somerville, which loathe those pesky college students. After being bombarded with campaign rhetoric, the fact that only this crackdown has united students shows that local issues, not detailed national proposals, mobilize young people. All the election parties in the world, with all the free pizza in Boston, can't change this simple fact.
Even the most savvy election watchers could easily move to the ranks of the disinterested. Activists on both sides point to the Supreme Court vacancies as a primary reason to vote. At the debate watching party in Hotung, the predominantly pro-choice campus became attentive and unruly only as this topic was discussed. While it is true that several justices may retire this term, these appointments are notoriously politics' most unpredictable. Seven of nine justices are Republican appointees, yet Roe v. Wade stands. In the most prominent litmus test case, the test seemingly failed.
More clearly, when asked about his biggest mistakes in office, President Eisenhower responded, "I have two and they both sit in the Supreme Court." No matter how carefully presidents vet their nominees, justices vote as they chose when they don the black robe. Even this commonly employed reasoning for getting people to vote is weak upon examination.
Campus activists certainly make other arguments for being engaged, though. A myriad of viewpoints have graced this page over the proceeding weeks, albeit there is little convincing to be done on an already very liberal campus. But outside of these pieces, every indication is that most students know little, and care less, about the election.
All of this isn't necessarily bad, though. There exists no logical reason why a student from New York should feel compelled to vote in this presidential election. Gore leads in the state by more than twenty points, making it far out of Bush's reach baring a massive storm that only hits heavily democratic New York City. Anyone who votes in Massachusetts, and a plethora of other states like it, suffers from the same fate: a vote for Gore simply reinforces his victory and a vote for Bush is a waste of arm motion.
By most electoral counts, moreover, almost every northeastern state, where three-fourths of the student body originates, is firmly in support of Gore. And the South and Southwest, where the bulk of the remaining students call home, is the same way for Bush. In truth there are only a handful of states that really matter in this election - most of which aren't prevalent in our student body: Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and so on.
Students who gripe about voting apathy will assert that if everyone used this logic, no one in these states would vote. This is fine though, as long as the people of the swing states come out to decide the election, as they no doubt will. The campaigns themselves don't even dispute that only the swing states matter, as evidenced by the lack of campaign commercials in Massachusetts and New York.
These are only two examples of how easy it is for college students to see through transparent arguments about why they must vote. If political activists are looking for the real lesson of this election, other than how Gore faired so poorly in such a great economy, they should start by taking stock of the issues presented to students in this years contest. A discussion of more local issues, such as how Tufts is affected through financial aid or Affirmative Action, might do better next time at getting students interested.
