When Santa Rosa Junior College student Thomas Zedrick walked into the democratic headquarters in downtown Santa Rosa looking for an opportunity to help raise voter awareness for the 2010 midterm election, the salutation he received was: “We’ll sign off on your hours.” He had no idea what they were talking about. They thought a class requirement was the only reason he had opened their Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown paraphernalia plastered double doors.
Zedrick is a student in Monte Freidig’s political science class. Some political science instructors require that students get involved when there is an election, but Freidig simply offers extra credit to students who work on a campaign of their choice and vote; few students have taken advantage of his extra credit opportunity, he says.
“I can tell you the ‘enthusiasm gap’ noted by many pollsters this year is evident in my classes,” Freidig says. “Young people were among Obama’s strongest supporters in 2008 and turned out in big numbers, but they have cooled some this year and tend not to in large numbers, midterms anyway.”
Zedrick happened across the Democratic Party campaign because his dad rents a building to them, and since political science is his minor, he wanted to seize an opportunity to learn more about the political process. “Right at this moment, I feel I am not as informed as I should be, as I want to be,” Zedrick says.
He walked in and asked if there was anything he could get involved in; once he got past the assumptions that he was only there to get an A in a class, the Democratic Party recruited him to walk precincts and work the phone bank.
Zedrick was surprised at how few people, especially young people, were volunteering; there were only four people phone banking when he was there. “It seemed kind of lackluster, just not a whole lot of involvement,” he says. “If you want to make a difference and take control of your own life, then it’s something you are going to want to get interested in.”
News from all over the United States, poll results, SRJC instructors and regular campaign volunteers echo Zedrick’s sentiment.
Rock the Vote Poll results released Sept. 15, showed 36 percent of 18 to 29 year olds say they do not care which party controls Congress.
“I don’t think students are as involved as they could be,” Says Steve Rabinowitch, an SRJC political sciences instructor who requires students to work on a campaign. Rabinowitch himself is extremely involved in politics. He used to be on the Santa Rosa City Council }{PP)(&)_)o90nd is currently involved in several committees for Santa Rosa on a citizen level. He says being involved in local politics is important because it binds you to your community. “I like to engage students in the real world of politics,” Rabinowitch says. “I think that’s really important. It connects people to what’s going on.”
Ian Winbrook, the campus coordinator for Prop. 19, and co-administator Mike Mallers are both students in Rabinowitch’s political science class and were inspired to go beyond their assignment with their involvement in Prop. 19. “He encouraged us to get involved in an issue we are passionate about,” Winbrook says.
Winbrook worked in the marijuana industry in Humboldt, Mendocino and Sonoma counties and has personal experience with the “criminalization” of marijuana, something he is happy to share with passersby. “I saw this as an opportunity, a chance for me to not only spearhead something on campus, but also engage other young people in political discourse,” Winbrook says.
Winbrook and Mallers see their involvement in the campaign for Prop. 19 as not only an opportunity to support something they are passionate about, but to also register people to vote and get them thinking about the issues on the ballot. “Individuals really do want to get involved in political discourse, but they want to be involved in something they relate to emotionally,” Winbrook says.
Eighty-three percent of 18-29 year olds say they believe their generation has the power to change our country, yet 59 percent feel more cynical about politics than they did two years ago, according to the Sept. Rock the Vote Poll.
SRJC student Max Kappes, president of the Gavin Newsom club and political science major, can be found in one of the group study rooms of Doyle library phone banking for Gavin Newsom or out tabling. He helps out at the Democratic Headquarters sometimes, but is annoyed with them because, seeing he is an involved student, they call him everyday.
In addition to a Gavin Newsom for Lieutenant Governor sticker, Kappes has two things on his backpack: a “yes on Prop.19” button and a “no on Prop. 23” sticker.
Although Kappes is actively involved in campaigning himself—mostly telling people he walks by to vote for Newsom—he is surprised by the lack of campaigning on campus. “So you’ve got the no on 23 people, they care; you’ve got the yes on 19 people, and they care, and you’ve got, like, five other students who care about the election, and that’s it,” Kappes says, proud he avoided using swear words. “I have the only two issues the youth care about on my backpack.”
Kappes is not only frustrated by the lack of campaigning on campus, but is also frustrated by the general lack of student enthusiasm. Most people have no idea who Gavin Newsom is, Kappes says.
The Gavin Newsom club consists mainly of people Kappes drags around with him, he says. “It is really hard to get people interested in this kind of thing.” Kappes gets people together for phone banking or tabling by going to people that he knows have nothing better to do and asking them to help out.
SRJC student and instructor Richard Massell started the California Politics 101 club on campus and has experienced difficulty involving students in the election and politics in general. “They’re too busy with their goals in their lives such as jobs, education and family to think that politics is a priority,” he says. Massell went to political science classes and found students who seemed interested in the club, but when he contacted them, most had no idea what he was talking about, he says.
“There’s a lot of apathy going around; a lot of people just don’t want to research,” Kappes says. “Well, you can’t play the ignorance card when you’re just too lazy to look it up. It’ll take you an hour. Just do it. You spend that much time on Facebook, at least.”
Massell did manage to get a few students interested in talking about California politics, and student Roxanne Squires took over as president of the club. She recalls hearing people talking behind her one day about how they weren’t going to vote because they did not know about the propositions or the candidates. “I feel that a lot of people are apathetic toward voting, especially local government issues because they don’t know much about it, and they feel it doesn’t take any impact on their lives, ” Squires says.
SRJC student Jenny Ferrando is trying to get people to vote by making sure people are getting their ballots and signing them up for early voting.
“The probability that people will vote increases if they are signed up to vote by mail,” Ferrando says. “A lot of people either forget, or it’s just not as important as the regular day-to-day things. If you do mail in voting then you have a lot of time to really think about the issues. It is a lot easier to just do it and get it done.” Despite common feelings of apathy, Ferrando is set on getting people to take advantage of their rights and get out and vote.
“It’s fine to be jaded. You don’t have to vote for the top two candidates, and you don’t have to vote for the favored candidate in whatever position it is. Vote with your heart. I know it sounds silly, but, it’s sending a message one way or the other,” Ferrando says.
Ferrando is happy to see that there are some p
eople spreading information on campus, if for no other reason than to have a conversation. “A lot of times you see the advertisements and it’s blatant falsities, but it’s on both sides, and it’s not about the true affects of what is being presented to you,” Ferrando says.
Ferrando remembers the first time she voted and how she picked candidates based on how much she liked his or her name. It wasn’t until she worked in a law office and witnessed the legal aspect of politics on a daily basis that she really started to care about being an informed voter. “It’s a lot easier to push things away if it doesn’t immediately affect you or enter your sphere of influence,” she says. She has now taken it upon herself to educate others about why their vote counts. “If you look at media coverage of different nations, the main criteria for democracy is the peoples’ ability to vote, and to have a say in the process.”
Even if you can’t do anything else due to time constraints, priorities or health problems, you can at least vote and make a huge difference, says Don Jones, a generalist in facilities operations at SRJC and adviser for a new political club on campus with a “conservative flavor,” Young America. Jones started the club to aid students in deducting truth from political media coverage so that they can be more informed voters. Jones was feeling a general sense of alarm that most people vote based on one source or second hand information, he says.
“If one publication is writing this and you get the other that’s writing the complete opposite, where is the truth? How do you determine the truth? And more importantly, why they’re entitled the truth. If they’re being told everything’s peachy keen, but this country’s going in the toilet, shouldn’t they know about it?” Jones says.
When Zedrick walked into the democratic office, they told him Republicans are horrible and Democrats are the best, and to just tell everybody to vote Democratic all the way down the list. “If you want the information and you want to go out and make an informed decision…you can find it, it’s just up to you,” he says. “It’s more about taking it on as an individual, wanting to be informed.”