The Call of the Campaign
Students hit the road for presidential hopefuls
By Chris Berdik. Photos by Robin Berghaus
Click on the slide show above to learn about students canvassing for Barack Obama in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Meghan Wieckowski (CAS’10) knows the stereotype: young people don’t vote. “Our age group is known for being apathetic about politics,” she says, and the numbers bear her out. In the 2004 presidential election, less than half of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds cast ballots, compared with 72 percent of those fifty-five and older, according to the Census Bureau. But paradoxically, young Americans are also increasingly flexing their political muscle: between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, voter registration and voting by young adults increased by 7 percent and 11 percent respectively, the largest increase of any demographic group.
Wieckowski, an international relations major, has sensed the energy of youth involvement in the current presidential race. Along with several other Boston University students, she volunteered as a canvasser in Manchester, New Hampshire, going door-to-door among likely voters on behalf of a campaign. Wieckowski’s candidate is Barack Obama, and on several Saturdays last fall, she boarded an early-morning bus to the Granite State, which held the nation’s first presidential primary, on January 8, 2008.
“The campaign is ecstatic that we have come up. They just love the youth support,” says Wieckowski. “It shows almost a new face to politics; it shows that in this election we’re really getting involved.”