Candidates in the race for the U.S. Senate seat vacated following Edward Kennedy's death have been taking advantage of the enthusiasm of college students to aid the momentum of their campaigns leading up to the Dec. 8 party primaries.
From Democratic frontrunner Martha Coakley to Republican contender Scott Brown (LA '81), candidates have visited college campuses, run special programs for students and tried to make young people a key to their electoral success.
Most student involvement thus far has consisted of spreading the word about candidates, registering voters and gathering signatures to help the campaigns reach the 10,000-signature requirement for securing a place on the ballot, according to Tufts Democrats President Andrea Lowe.
"So far all of the campaigns have recognized the importance of mobilizing young people for their cause," said Lowe, a senior.
College students, while statistically on the smaller side in terms of registered voters, offer campaigns free labor, doing a lot of brunt work as candidates prepare for the primaries.
"Vote-wise, we're not the ones who will determine this race," said sophomore John Peter Kaytrosh, an active member of the Tufts Democrats. He believes that college students can make a difference because they are inherently wired to volunteer on campaigns.
"We're young, we're energetic, we're engaged and we want to build our resumés," he said. "We're coming to and from classrooms where we're learning good campaign strategies and we're learning how to reach people."
Alan Khazei, a Democrat who entered the race on Sept. 24, has become one of the most enthusiastic recruiters of student volunteers. Khazei lacks the same name recognition enjoyed by other candidates, according to Lowe, and has tried to make up ground on his opponents by focusing on young voters.
"Khazei will rely on the 18-to-30 demographic as a solid base more" than the other candidates, Lowe said. "His campaign has had much more of a grassroots style."
Khazei's campaign has tried to appeal to younger voters by emphasizing his background in public service. He is the founder of Be the Change, a Boston-based political activism organization, and the co-founder of the youth service project City Year.
The campaign is "really about releasing the potential of young people," Khazei's wife, Vanessa Kirsch (LA '87), told the Daily during a Khazei campaign stop at Tufts on Oct. 8. Kircsch has herself founded several non-profit organizations.
Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general widely considered to have a strong lead in the Democratic race, has been holding weekly "college nights" for students at her Charlestown, Mass., headquarters. At the events, about 20 to 30 participants phone bank, calling other college students and encouraging them to become involved, according to campaign intern Seth Rau.
"It's an opportunity for [students] to help with the campaign and not feel like they're the only ones," said Rau, a sophomore. The campaign sees college students as a smaller group of the general population, he added.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Massachusetts State Sen. Brown has been appealing to Tufts students through the Tufts Republicans, according to Michael Hawley, who served as president of the group last year.
"I received e-mails from the campaign asking me to gather volunteers to gather signatures as soon as he declared that he was running," said Hawley, a junior.
Several students became interested in Brown's politics after he spoke at Tufts last year about a Massachusetts plan to divest funds from Iran, Hawley said.
A number of Democratic candidates have also included Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus in their campaign plans.
Khazei's campus visit on Oct. 8 came as part of a tour of Massachusetts colleges. His visit was the second in a series of talks to take place at universities across the state.
Michael Capuano, Jr., son of U.S. Rep. and primary candidate Mike Capuano (D-Mass.), spoke at the Oct. 6 meeting of the Tufts Democrats. The elder Capuano's district includes sections of Tufts' Medford/Somerville campus, and the Capuano campaign will a some role at the Nov. 3 Tufts Democrats meeting, according to Lowe.
In addition, Coakley campaign manager Kevin Conroy (A '94) and other campaign workers plan to attend an Oct. 20 Tufts Democrats meeting.
However, not all outreach on the part of candidates has involved campus visits, rallies and student volunteering. All contenders are active on Facebook.com and Twitter.com in some capacity, although some are more reliant on the online community than others.
Khazei's camaign updates his status and adds pictures and discussion topics to his Facebook page almost daily. Matt Shapanka (LA '09), who worked for Coakley's 2006 attorney general campaign and has some ties to her current run, told the Daily that Facebook.com and Twitter.com are "alive and well" in the leading Democrat's campaign.
For one Tufts student, the candidates' level of outreach and accessibility to college students influenced his decision of whom to help.
Sophomore Tim Lesinski originally hoped to volunteer for Congressman Mike Capuano but found the campaign's presence on campus and online to be "incredibly disorganized."
"They didn't respond to my requests to help them out in a timely manner, and they didn't really seem to have any strategy for student outreach," said Lesinski, who made the switch to the Khazei campaign.
Capuano has focused his campaign on the needs of the permanent citizens of Massachusetts and less on those of college students, who often choose to vote in their out-of-state hometowns, according to Kaytrosh.
