Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama aren’t the only presidential candidates making the rounds on college campuses in North Carolina. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr spoke Tuesday at both Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill.
“A wasted vote is a vote for the Democrats or the Republicans because, regardless of the Republican or Democratic candidate being elected, nothing will change,” Barr said at Duke.
At UNC-CH, many attendees said they had already voted for Barr.
Libertarians have been getting more attention that ever, especially in North Carolina, where Duke professor and Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger is campaigning heavily. But at least at UNC-CH, Libertarian students seem to have a much smaller presence. It’ll be interesting to see how many cast votes for third parties.
Following the Chronicle’s story on Bill Pitney, a 76-year-old registering voters at Duke University, The Daily Tar Heel writes this nice profile on Estelle Kendall, a 90-year-old who says she’s never missed an election.
As she cast her vote for Barack Obama, Kendall had about seven decades of political participation to draw upon, all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaigns in the thirties. He was the first candidate she remembers fighting for.
“Now I don’t think of voting so much for me because I’m nearing the end, and I’ve had such a good run,” she said. “It’s important for the future.”
But “nearing the end” is far from Kendall’s life outlook — she still dances the Lindy and the Charleston when nobody is watching, she said. She insisted on inching up Morehead’s steps independently, with one hand on her cane and one on the rail, taking in the energy of the crowd.
The Duke Chronicle has an article that is a profile of a man who registers students to vote. It’s one of my favorite voter registration stories I’ve seen this year by a college paper.
Bill Pitney is Duke’s most visible political activist during this election season.
But he doesn’t live in a dormitory. He lives in a retirement home.
Since August, Pitney, 76, has camped out by the West Campus Plaza archway armed with stacks of voter registration sheets, sitting in his fold-up chair at his fold-up table for hours a day, every day. Up until today’s voter registration deadline, he has waged a bipartisan war on apathy and ambivalence by signing up as many as 40 students to vote per day.
By his estimate, he’s initiated almost 700 new voters-a total large enough to swing the toss-up state of North Carolina to one of the candidates, he said.
“The thing I notice is the intense interest in the election among students,” he said. “This time, you’re gonna vote big time-I can just see it.”
(“76-year-old politico signs up voters left and right,” by Nathan Freeman, published Oct. 10)
It works in commentary on the generational divide and goes briefly into other voter registration efforts by the university’s Democrats and Republicans.
And the chronology of the narrative, weaving all the other details about voter registration into a beginning and end that focuses on Pitney’s day registering voters, works really well.
My only nit is that I wish there was a picture to accompany the article. Pitney is described so vividly in the story, and I want to see him, interacting with students, registering voters — the way Duke students see him on campus.
The rally in Greenville, N.C. was on The East Carolinian’s home turf. The paper posted photos and an article about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin‘s visit. The article sets the stage well, with good color about the event, down to the music playing (Shania Twain – “She’s Not Just a Pretty Face“).
The East Carolinian article also localizes the story well for Pirates frans from Greenville:
“I understand your football season got off to quite a start this year,” she said, eliciting cheers from the Minges crowd. “It sounds like Greenville knows a little something about how to turn an underdog into a victor. John McCain and I know that the people of Greenville are ready to shake things up in Washington.”
Interesting is the article’s description of how attendees chanted “Sarah” and “Palin” in response to one another – I’m not sure if it needs so much explanation. And check out the adorably-cute girl who is excited about the autograph (“Sarah”) she received.
Duke University’s The Chronicle also sent reporters to the event. Their article has good imagery of the signs (“Read my lipstick,” “Tar Heels love high heels” and “Palin power”). The Chronicle also quotes the other politicians at the rally – Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr.
“Most in this crowd already feel like they know her, because she’s one of us,” Burr said. “Every day she wakes up and balances her personal life with her professional life.”
I also like that The Chronicle localizes it towards the end, telling about the tickets allotted to Durham and how fast they disappeared (within an hour).
The Daily Tar Heel at UNC-Chapel Hill sent three to the rally and posted an article, slideshow and video. In the interest of full disclosure, I edited the DTH story.
It also has scene-setting descriptions of the crowd (“cries of ‘U-S-A’ and ‘Drill baby, drill.’”), and I like that Emily interviewed crowd members for their perspectives:
“She’s like a wholesome, all-American, God-Bless-America-type person,” said Elizabeth Fornes, a 44-year-old Craven County resident who works in undergraduate admissions at ECU.
I wish we included a photo of Palin “waving a giant, purple foam finger in homage to the ECU fans filling the stands,” which we had, and ran later in the week.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is in Greenville, N.C. tonight at a rally. Under the Dome reports she grabbed pizza downtown with fellow Republicans, Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Charlotte Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory and Sen. Richard Burr.
The Daily Tar Heel sent a reporter, photographer and videographer. The DTH expects to update its blog with coverage from the rally tonight.
The East Carolinian, the student newspaper at East Carolina University, where Palin is speaking, had a preview story with information about where to get tickets. I’ll update as they or any other student papers post content on the rally.
Public Policy Polling’s most recent poll (conducted Sept. 27-28) shows that younger N.C. voters aged 18-29 haven’t decided who to vote for beyond the presidential race.
The number of undecideds is higher among that age group than any other in the gubernatorial race between Republican Pat McCrory and Democrat Bev Perdue and in the senatorial race between Republican Elizabeth Dole and Democrat Kay Hagan. In that age group, 18 percent say they don’t know who they’re supporting for governor, and 14 percent don’t know who they’re backing for the Senate. By comparison, the undecideds in the presidential race at that age is only 5 percent.
Tom Jensen, who runs the poll, writes that overall the numbers suggest about one-third of the electorate is up for grabs in the next four weeks. And since so many young voters are up for the taking, that could bode well for the candidates who can attract that youth vote.
Several are campaigning this weekend to that end. There’s a Students for McCrory Web site and students were Pit-sitting for him at UNC-Chapel Hill on Friday. N.C. State’s The Technician reports that McCrory is campaigning at a barbecue before Dole tailgates with students before the N.C. State football game Saturday.
The ultimate arbiter of all things youth – Facebook – breaks the candidates’ Internet support down as follows (as of Oct. 3):
McCrory – 1,951 supporters
Perdue – 811 supporters
Dole – 896 supporters
Hagan – 1,416 supporters
Hagan, for what it’s worth, has the broadest Facebook support by far. In addition to her supporters, there are Republicans for Kay Hagan, UNCC Students for Kay Hagan, Duke Students for Kay Hagan, NCSU Students for Kay Hagan and a Kay Hagan for US Senate group with 1,025 members. She also updates a Twitter account (62 followers). Whether any of this translates to numbers at the polls remains to be seen.
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and running mate Joe Biden addressed a crowd of nearly 20,000 in Greensboro on Saturday. The crowd at the speech, which focused chiefly on improving the economic situation for the middle class, was full of college students. The drumline from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University performed, and students from nearby UNC-Greensboro were out in full force.
UNC-G junior Jeena Saunders, a psychology major from Washington, D.C., said it’s refreshing that so many young people are excited about this election.
I’d definitely say the young population is actually more involved at looking into the issues this election.
Saunders said she feels the campus is evenly split 50-50 between Obama and Republican nominee John McCain.
There’s more visible Obama support. It seems like people don’t want to voice that they’re a McCain supporter.
The Duke Chronicle is reporting that the University will add an on-campus voting site Oct. 16. The site is an effort to increase student voting, which was lower at Duke than at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State in the May primary, one professor said.
“The Duke students I knew and taught were not self-absorbed and politically apathetic,” said Gunther Peck, associate professor of history and public policy studies at Duke. “The only clear and obvious difference was that only Duke did not have an on-campus voting site.”
Peck says that the lack of close-to-campus voting options keeps students from voting, but I wonder if part of it isn’t also that Duke’s out-of-state students were more interested in voting absentee in contests that were earlier in the primary season.
The question of whether to encourage students to vote locally or absentee is an issue at UNC-CH, where the campus Young Democrats have been amping up their Get Out the Vote efforts to increase voting in Orange County, while Students for McCain is encouraging absentee voting.
College students obviously don’t read their student newspaper for national news – CNN, Politico, cable news all have more to offer.
But in an election season that already has charged the youth vote, college newspapers would be remiss if they didn’t cover the campaigns. Already, papers have sent student journalists around N.C. to cover politico’s appearances, have snagged interviews with candidates for state office and have localized the party’s conventions in Denver and St. Paul, Minn. And when it comes to state elections, student papers might be a reader’s only source of information about the candidates. How they cover the elections matter.
Until the election, check back to see what student newspapers are writing about the campaigns. Hear from editors about how they’re localizing the national race, and how they’re educating readers about state races, and read a round-up of election news as it’s published by N.C. college papers.
Comments and ideas are welcomed. Something missing from your college paper’s coverage? Something they do well? I want to hear. (Disclaimer: I’m a managing editor at The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper. Critiques of the DTH’s coverage are certainly welcome.)
