Outlining November election strategies

With the presidential elections less than seven months away, over 60 students packed the Hillcrest House last Wednesday for a Brown Bag lecture.

Robert N. Roberts, a political science professor, spoke on the subject of the 2004 presidential campaign. Roberts discussed how the votes of America’s youth and “battleground states” factor into a presidential campaign schedule.

During the 2000 presidential election, surveys showed that 205 million Americans were of voting age, yet only 105 million — about 51 percent — actually voted, Roberts said. The central theme to the lecture was whether or not voting in the presidential elections really matters at all.

As different demographics have different opinions about various subjects such as gay marriage, “it does matter that certain groups are being under-represented,” Roberts said.

One area where this is important to campaigns is in the battleground states such as West Virginia and New Hampshire. What makes these, and 15 other states, battleground states is that they cannot traditionally be generally classified as Republican or Democratic states.

Virginia, by comparison, is considered a Republican state because the vast majority of the ime, voters selected Republican candidates, Roberts said.

West Virginia is considered to be a crucial state to win this year because although West Virginia had not voted for a Republican candidate in a very long time, presidential candidate Al Gore lost it in 2000.

One key point in Gore’s campaign that hurt him was his policy on gun control, according to Roberts.

Another issue in that state was environmental controls. In a state where most jobs are in the coal mining industry, prohibiting the burning of coal would drastically cut jobs.

Roberts said that New Hampshire also is considered to be a crucial state because of its environmentalist nature.

In 2000, Gore lost this state as well, partially because of Ralph Nader of the Green Party. “Nader’s vote made a difference in New Hampshire and Florida,” Roberts said, because votes for Nader detracted from votes for Gore.

These two examples are important because they were states expected to be won by an environmentally concerned Democrat, yet then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush carried both, Roberts said.

It is estimated that 90 percent of campaign finances will be spent in 17 battleground states, he added.

Many states split voters between rural and metropolitan areas. Ohio is one of these states and Roberts said that it is in a “dead heat” between John Kerry and Bush over manufacturing workers’ votes.

Roberts said that Democrats who voted for Bush in 2000 are fearful of losing their jobs. Many said, “Which way Ohio goes, the election goes,” Roberts added.

While battleground states receive extra attention due to their inconsistency, another area is largely is ignored for the same reason — youth and independent vote, Roberts said.

It is a largely held belief by candidates that the independent votes will swing the election. If they voted this may be true, but hey tend not to vote at all so candidates spend little time campaigning to this group, Roberts said.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 also tend not to be very “enamored” with big government and tend to be more socially-moderate than other generations, Roberts added.

As a result of a lack of enthusiasm from the younger generations, they are often underrepresented as a group.

Instead of concentrating on attracting new voters, candidates focus on those voters who they believe already will vote in their favor and attempt to retain that vote, he added.

Candidates attempt to keep new, younger voters at home on Election Day with negative campaigning. This tactic is extremely damaging to the political system as a whole, Roberts said.

Freshman Lindsay Powell said, “I think that it’s interesting how presidential candidates make this a game, a gamble of where to focus attention and put money with states that are complete tossups.”

Joanne Gabbin, Director of the Honors Program, said, “I think students should [have] a revolution and mess up the whole system.”

Roberts added that if students did manage to change the system, candidates would spend a great deal more time visiting college campuses.