Approaching
City Hall this past Monday to vote early in this year’s presidential
election, I was initially repulsed by what I saw. Foolishly thinking
that going at 3 p.m. would rid me of the early voter rush due to
classes, I was unpleasantly surprised to see the line snaking outside
to the bottom of the steps.
My impatience grew quickly, and I could not
erase any hint of irritation as I slowly treaded through each section
of the municipal building. This feeling of boredom and threat of doom
that I would never get out of Madison City Hall alive suddenly
vanished, though, when I thought of what such a crowd implied.
The two-hour wait that I ended up going
through, which was a day before the actual election, signified a wave
of regard and concern for the state of our country. It symbolized the
unity of our students, not in relation to partisanship, but in relation
to how much they care about the next four to eight years. With this in
mind, I then thought back to our impressive political history, looking
back even as recently as 41 years ago to the age of the Dow Chemical
protest, and the political trademark this great university earned in
recognition for being the most active campus in the nation alongside
the likes of UC-Berkley.
Although there have been messages over the
past few decades about our school’s level of activism falling below
that of the counter-culture generation’s—most notably in a UW-Madison
student-created documentary “Youthanized,” I strongly believe that this
campus proved itself through the months of a very rigorous campaign to
undoubtedly be in the top tier of schools where politics are a
priority.
With such a key election taking place, this
campus was under a lot of necessary pressure to make a political
impact. Although political apathy is always a concern among college
students, UW-Madison once again did everything that it could to keep
itself from joining that category—and it succeeded. During the 2004
election, the Deputy clerk Sharon Christensen said that a 90 percent
voter turnout wasn’t out of the question after 30 percent of registered
voters arrived at the polls by 11 a.m. Based on the political activity
I’ve seen, 90 percent voter turnout, while unlikely, shouldn’t be ruled
out in this election.
In politically-active schools such as this
one, it always seems to be a fairly safe assumption that the majority
of the student body will be active in not only voting but campaigning
as well. As far back as the winter primaries, the streets were flooded
with messages and organizers, spreading their ideologies, assuring that
everyone was registered to vote at their new addresses.
Student and political teams such as WISPIRG, ASM, Progressive
Future, Power Vote, Project Youthanize and many others stood by their
goals to simplify the voting process and to emphasize particular topics
to consider when voting. People crowded Library Mall, sending and
receiving memos of electoral importance. It was not uncommon for
students to return to their houses and apartments to find leaflets and
door signs supporting a particular campaign or simply reminding them
where to vote in their district.
Regardless of how much one may have
attempted to eliminate this election from any train of thought, there
was no avoiding this hurricane of political controversy. And in a time
as precious as this in a country that is in such sore need of strong
leadership, who could expect anything less? The voter turnout for
Americans ranging from age 18 to 24 was expected to be as high as 60
percent, and UW-Madison without a doubt served as a prime exemplary
image representing the drastic increase in political concern that this
country has seen amongst young people.
Dan Josephson is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
