After Underdogs Fall, Students Blase About Campaign

This November's presidential election will be a pivotal moment in deciding the country's direction on issues from education to gun control to saving Social Security.

But for most Harvard students, as for the rest of the country, the race just has not captivated them this year.

The upstart campaigns of Sen. John S. McCain and former Sen. Bill Bradley drew passionate support from a small group of politically enthused students. But after those campaigns fizzled on Super Tuesday, students say the race lost that momentum.

"The results from the rest of the country were...sobering," said McCain organizer Mattie Germer '03 after her candidate's defeat. "It was tough to take, but that's the way politics goes. The American public spoke and that's what we'll have to accept."

And Bradley and McCain supporters say the campaign's efforts accomplished a seemingly impossible task--for a brief time, they made politics exciting to many students.

"We felt that we had a candidate we really believed in and that makes a huge difference," said Rachel E. Taylor '03 after Bradley's Super Tuesday defeat.

Still, the most adamant student supporters say they hope their efforts were not in vain.

"I'm really proud of what [Bradley] has been able to achieve...in terms of what this year's election debate is going to be about," said Luke P. McLoughlin '00, president of Harvard Students for Bradley, in March.

McLoughlin credits Bradley with bringing up issues that never would have come to light, such as race relations and poverty.

For supporters of Vice President Al Gore '69 and Gov. George W. Bush, it has been a more fruitful year. The students supporting them say they are hopeful for the fall.

Robert R. Porter '00-'02, who is coordinating the campus effort for Bush, says the effort is worthwhile.

"It's grunt work, but it's fun," Porter says. "Seeing the effectiveness, talking to people about the issues--that's the part I enjoy. Going canvassing can actually make a difference."

Marcie B. Bianco '02, the state coordinator of Students for Gore, is hopeful about the vice president's chances in the race.

"His campaign seems to have hit a stride. He's gotten accustomed to stepping up and being the leader, as opposed to second-in-command. He's got a winning effort," Bianco said after a March rally in Boston.

But Bianco and Porter are the exception among students. Although this could have been the year for a surge in student involvement in politics, the majority has remained largely apathetic about the campaign and their political beliefs.

With the surge in Internet startups and investment banking, some politically-minded students say their peers think the way to change the world is with their pocketbooks, not their voices.

"'Have people gone from Washington to Wall Street?' is the big question," says Marc Stad '01, president of the College Democrats.

Winthrop Professor of History Stephen A. Thernstrom says graduates' growing prosperity makes them less concerned with political fights.

"There is a sense of entitlement and privilege that comes through," Thernstrom says.

Empirical evidence backs up the perception that students are less involved. In a poll released in March by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, 55 percent of those surveyed said the campaign was "boring" and only 25 percent termed it "exciting."

Whatever the reason, in many ways students at Harvard have stopped acting on their ideologies.

Harvard is still a liberal place--in a Crimson poll conducted earlier this year, almost half of Harvard students identified themselves as liberal, a third as moderate and a sixth as conservative.

But other studies suggest students now express their convictions through public service rather than voting or political organizing.

According to a survey in early May by the Institute of Politics (IOP), Harvard students who want change say community service is the only feasible method.

Of the 300 students polled, 78 percent had performed service in the past year, whereas only 38.7 percent had been a part of a political organization. Less than 25 percent had volunteered for a political campaign.

"[Students] aren't against politics in the abstract--they just think it is more difficult to get involved in politics," said Trevor D. Dryer '00-'02, who co-chaired the committee that developed the survey. "Community service is easier and you see more tangible results."

Observers propose various theories to account for the change.

"It's the after-effects of an entire shift in the culture towards individualism against deferentialism and authority and tradition," says Ramesh A. Ponnuru, a senior editor at the National Review, a conservative opinion magazine.

Stad says that in comparison to the 1960s when hundreds of students participated in even the smallest elections, students today have no one concrete issue to fight for, making for little enthusiasm in the political arena.

"There is very little passion for today's issues," he says. "There's not a revolutionary issue for students to rally around. Students in the '60s actually did make a difference."

Politically-minded students say that in order to recruit their peers back into politics, they must first understand the causes of the disengagement.

"I see government as a vehicle for changing the world around me, but many young people don't see national or even state politics as a way of changing things," said Kara A. Shamy '03, one of the committee members for the IOP poll. "I wanted to see why that was."