It’s more than a year until the next big elections. Yet a rash of speakers and discussion tells students that campus politics are not dead

By Alex Kurt

The next national election is more than one year away.

For many students, politics are the last things on their minds.

“I think there’s a lot lacking right now,” said Students Fostering Conservative Thought President Luke Fischer. “Apathy is something that every political club faces when it’s not an election year.”

Yet John Stossel’s visit Monday came courtesy of SFCT. Al Franken will speak at St. Cloud State University tonight. The College Democrats are hosting a pro-life speaker Monday, and the Center for Public Policy launched its annual Eugene J. McCarthy Lecture Series with an inaugural visit from Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne last week.

“I think there’s a growing sense of excitement about the ‘08 elections” CPP moderator Matt Lindstrom said. “I think there’s a kind of burgeoning sense of anticipation for student participation.”

College Democrats Co-chair Joe Kane talks as though there is no such thing as a non-election season.

“I think it’s exciting to see so many fresh faces in the field,” he said. “We’re not too far away from it. I would encourage the idea that people start learning about each candidate and get excited for next spring when the caucuses are happening.”

Lindstrom, a professor of political science, says he is already excited.

“There’s a lot of conversation right now,” he said. “I think what happened in ‘06 will look tame or small compared to what will happen in ‘08.”

“But I’m sure a lot of people are shaking their heads at why we’re even talking about ‘08 already,” he said.

Starting the discussion

The Center for Public Policy’s beginnings can be traced seven years back, when the learning community projects that stemmed from the Bush Foundation put forth funding for a program to foster dialogue about public policy.

Today, the funding is gone, but Lindstrom and the students of the CPP have kept the talk going.

The CPP worked with Controversial Conversations to set up town hall meetings in the fall, and the “Politics and a Pint” discussion series has been a regular part of the schedule.

“We want to maintain a healthy consistency of activities on and off campus, and we really want to emphasize collaboration with other programs and student groups and departments,” Lindstrom said.

“We’ve collaborated with the Global Awareness Lecture Series, Latin American studies, and environmental studies. We’ve sponsored our own speakers and study tours, including a trip to Chicago.”

Lindstrom said that a study/internship program is being planned to coincide with the GOP national convention, which will be in St. Paul in 2008.

Fischer says that SFCT seeks to play a role similar to that of the CPP.

“SFCT tries to lay low during the election season,” Fischer said. “But after the election, our goal is always to bring a conservative voice to campus, because there isn’t one being promoted by the administration.”

Fischer and SFCT, which was nominated for CSB/SJU Club of the Year, try to keep the discussion going during the non-election season.

“I’m really happy that we have so many political clubs on campus,” Fischer said. “It keeps

people talking and it keeps issues on the forefront of peoples’ minds.”

Keeping the spirit alive

Kane says that having speakers on campus is important to keep students politically aware.

“We want to continue to bring different voices to campus and make people think about what they want in government and what direction the want the U.S. to take as they graduate and become full citizens,” he said. “It’s always good to see the different viewpoints and talk about it and see what you really think by talking about it.”

John Stossel spoke on the vital role that individual students play in a functioning, political society.

“The heroes are not Ralph Nader or the armies of busybodies in Washington, D.C.,” he said Monday. in Pellegrene Auditorium. “It’s free people like yourselves, living your lives, being informed and pursuing your self-interests.”

Dionne spoke emotionally about the late McCarthy’s belief in the power of constant political dialogue.

“Gene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy — I honor them both — encouraged millions of us in 1968 and after to think anew, to act anew, to hope again in the possibilities of democracy and to believe that the sometimes cumbersome and imperfect instruments of electoral battle could reform and even occasionally revolutionize the nation,” Dionne said.

“Gene McCarthy confirmed my belief and my hope, I’ve never gotten over it, and I remain grateful to him.”

Fischer remains optimistic, though he says that students’ jobs as voters are not finished.

“I don’t think you can ever know too much about what’s happening in politics, and you can never be too involved,” he said. “I think that’s something that everyone should get involved with and take advantage of.”

Filed under: News by Alex Kurt