Well, Tufts, it's finally here.
After months of watching the polls, holding mock debates and joining Facebook.com groups, we enter Super Tuesday in the midst of a historic and contentious race for both presidential nominations.
On the Republican side, conservatives are struggling for a leader to redefine their party as its candidates lag in fundraising and national polls - no doubt a result of widespread dissatisfaction with the current Republican president and the unpopular war he has championed.
On the Democratic side, voters are faced with choices between youth and experience, optimism and realism - and the unprecedented choice between a white woman and a black man who each have a legitimate chance at becoming commander-in-chief.
And, on both sides, America's youth are engaged in a way they have not been for decades. For the first time, our generation is demanding a place alongside the aging baby boomers in determining the country's political future. In the early states, young voters showed up at the polls in record numbers, and college students across America have been captivated by the race for months.
Let us not waste this opportunity.
With the Democratic race essentially tied nationwide and the primary date in delegate-rich Massachusetts moved up along with a handful of others, the results of today's elections will have the power to bury candidates, propel them to the nomination or simply keep them alive to fight another day. Pervasive throughout the state is a sense that has not existed in recent history; that our votes, one way or another, will count.
How we participate today may either confirm or discount the patronizing but widely held assumption that our generation is disenchanted and uninterested - that we are selfish and lacking in conviction.
Students at Tufts spend much of their time debating, discussing and even working for political causes. We hold rallies against the war and organize drives to support our troops. We start political groups, hold debates and pen thoughtful and reasonable arguments to print in campus publications.
Today we have the chance to live up to our rhetoric and actually make a difference, however small, in America's future. So let us skip our classes, miss our favorite TV shows, brush our significant others aside and endure whatever inconvenience we must in order to cast our ballots in today's election.
We may not get an opportunity like this again.
