Buckeye bungle
Because I went to college in northeast Ohio, this week's reading had me thinking back to what I remembered of youth-oriented GOTV efforts in the area I went to school in.
During my sophomore year--2000--a rumor circulated that the small campus had been divided among four of the city's precincts to prohibit the students of the college, temporary residents of the town, from having too much say in local politics. I never found out if that rumor was true, but I did manage to strike down another rumor that had been making the rounds: That students couldn't register to vote in Ohio. While a lot of states have or are thinking about laws forbidding out-of-states students from registering as voters in their school states, Ohio isn't one of them, as this Columbus Dispatch piece explains. But no one ever stood outside our dining hall or peppered our cars with pamphlets telling us to switch our registration from, say, a place like D.C. to a state that matters electorally.
(I was--and still am--registered in Pennsylvania, so it didn't so much matter for me, one swing state for another.)
In 2000, my college, which Lynne Cheney once referred to as the most politically correct college in the country, was heavily pro-Nader; I wish I'd been in touch with enough people still there last year to tell you what happened in 2004. But if every vote mattered in Ohio in 2000 and 2004, surely the 18-22-year-old temporary residents of Ohio ought to count for something. Surely, if someone had made it their priority to convince even half of the college students in the state to register in Ohio, the election could have turned out differently. Heck, most of them would have been registering for the first time, anyway.
The Web is often most effective as a GOTV tool for young voters, just like the ones you find on your average college campus. And, judging by the politics of my college and many of those nearby, there are a fair number of left-leaning kids on these campuses who, had they been organized better, could have been a factor in swinging the state for Kerry. There's no reason save perhaps lack of vision that Democrats in Ohio weren't as organized as the Amway-like Republicans, as so many of our readings pointed out this week ad nauseum. Now just imagine what effect that mind-meld mentality could have had on college students.
On the other hand, what might have happened had hundreds and thousands of newly registered young voters then turned their attention toward GOTV efforts in their adopted towns? Would it have been like the Deaniacs in Iowa, or would a real dialogue have opened up between energized students and maybe not-so-energized adults? Would people who hated the presence of drunken college students in their town have turned away from a particular candidate just because some of those students went door to door suggesting they vote for Candidate X?
On yet another hand, it's not like Ohio was lacking in volunteers anyway.
During my sophomore year--2000--a rumor circulated that the small campus had been divided among four of the city's precincts to prohibit the students of the college, temporary residents of the town, from having too much say in local politics. I never found out if that rumor was true, but I did manage to strike down another rumor that had been making the rounds: That students couldn't register to vote in Ohio. While a lot of states have or are thinking about laws forbidding out-of-states students from registering as voters in their school states, Ohio isn't one of them, as this Columbus Dispatch piece explains. But no one ever stood outside our dining hall or peppered our cars with pamphlets telling us to switch our registration from, say, a place like D.C. to a state that matters electorally.
(I was--and still am--registered in Pennsylvania, so it didn't so much matter for me, one swing state for another.)
In 2000, my college, which Lynne Cheney once referred to as the most politically correct college in the country, was heavily pro-Nader; I wish I'd been in touch with enough people still there last year to tell you what happened in 2004. But if every vote mattered in Ohio in 2000 and 2004, surely the 18-22-year-old temporary residents of Ohio ought to count for something. Surely, if someone had made it their priority to convince even half of the college students in the state to register in Ohio, the election could have turned out differently. Heck, most of them would have been registering for the first time, anyway.
The Web is often most effective as a GOTV tool for young voters, just like the ones you find on your average college campus. And, judging by the politics of my college and many of those nearby, there are a fair number of left-leaning kids on these campuses who, had they been organized better, could have been a factor in swinging the state for Kerry. There's no reason save perhaps lack of vision that Democrats in Ohio weren't as organized as the Amway-like Republicans, as so many of our readings pointed out this week ad nauseum. Now just imagine what effect that mind-meld mentality could have had on college students.
On the other hand, what might have happened had hundreds and thousands of newly registered young voters then turned their attention toward GOTV efforts in their adopted towns? Would it have been like the Deaniacs in Iowa, or would a real dialogue have opened up between energized students and maybe not-so-energized adults? Would people who hated the presence of drunken college students in their town have turned away from a particular candidate just because some of those students went door to door suggesting they vote for Candidate X?
On yet another hand, it's not like Ohio was lacking in volunteers anyway.
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