Students swarm to Baker Center to follow primary results
By Emily Mullin
Athens NEWS Campus Reporter
March 6, 2008
Ohio University’s Baker Center bustled with excitement and anticipation Tuesday night as students gathered to watch the presidential primary results.
FOX News Channel and ThePalestra.com, a leading source for teens and young adults who follow college culture, hosted presidential primary viewing events at OU and Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.
ThePalestra.com joined with FOX in the fall of 2007 and has been an integral part of the news service’s primary coverage of the youth vote this election cycle.
ThePalestra.com conducted student interviews throughout the day and Tuesday evening, with college student opinions about the voting experience, presidential candidates, election predictions and the political arena in general.
The focus on students made sense, considering their increased involvement in presidential politics. According to figures released Wednesday by the Center for Information and Research in Civic Learning and Engagement, young voter turnout tripled in Texas and nearly doubled in Ohio in the presidential primaries on Tuesday. These are compared to figures for 19- to 29-year-olds who voted in the 2000 presidential primaries in those two states.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning the FOX News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” set up shop in the Baker Theater with a live audience composed of college students. The show, hosted by Allison Camerota, featured reporter Geraldo Rivera Tuesday and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Wednesday. A pre-selected focus group made up of OU student Republicans, Democrats and independents appeared on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning and was led by pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz.
Amid the hustle and bustle at Baker Center Tuesday night, some students donned Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama buttons while others held John McCain signs to show support for their favorite candidate.
OU freshman Justine Ketterer said it was good to see so many students at the event because the youth vote will “have a big impact” on the presidential election in the fall.
“The candidates are making an effort to talk to students and visit campuses,” Ketterer said. And as a result, she speculated, many students have been actively involved in the election process.
Chris Brown, also a freshman, has a different idea. Although he said college students tend to support Obama, “ultimately, the student vote in the general election won’t matter that much.”
Brown supports Hillary Clinton and was holding a Hillary sign at the event. “She’s a really strong, knowledgeable person,” he said of the New York senator, who wound up winning Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island Tuesday.
Ashley Wiseman, a junior at Hocking College, sported a Hillary pin with friends from OU. “As a woman, I can connect with Hillary Clinton,” she said. Wiseman said she supports Clinton over Obama because of her experience in the U.S. Congress and her leadership ability.
The idea that most students support Obama, however, received some reinforcement when the senator narrowly won the city of Athens, with its many student voters, but lost nearly everywhere else in Athens County.
Ellen Herman, an OU sophomore, watched the primary results intently with a group of friends. Herman said she supports John McCain, citing his military and political background as important factors in the presidential race. McCain sealed the nomination with victories on Tuesday.
“We’re in a war right now,” she said. “I think because McCain is a war veteran himself, he understands what we need to do to be successful in Iraq.”
Herman also favors McCain’s platform on health insurance over either of the Democratic candidates and thinks the Arizona senator will improve the economy by doing things like creating more job opportunities.
While to most students, Tuesday’s primary was the first election in which they had ever participated, senior Evan Tenaglia is a seasoned voter.
In 2004, Tenaglia said he voted for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., but he supports Obama this election cycle.
“In the last presidential election, I felt like I was voting more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry. This time, I think Democrats feel like they have something and someone to vote for, rather than against,” Tenaglia said of Obama’s platform.
Tenaglia said he admires Obama for his sincerity and mentioned that the junior senator from Illinois does not accept money from lobbyists. He also said he thinks Obama has run a more “truthful” campaign than his Democratic opponent.
“He gives me my trust and in return; I give him mine,” Tenaglia said.
The war in Iraq, the economy and health care were most commonly named by students as top issues in this election cycle. And although most students seemed to vote their conscious, others had a different voting approach.
A few students, who identified themselves as “conservative” or Republican, encouraged friends and family to vote for Hillary Clinton to throw off the Democratic race. The logic, they said, was to give Clinton the nomination, or else just to extend the divisive contest as long as possible. Many Republicans think Obama would be a tougher opponent for McCain to face in the fall than Clinton.
The event also featured musical guests DJ A-Roc and Smalltown Sleeper. OU’s Political Science Majors Association (PSMA) was a major sponsor for the event.
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