Political Clubs at UMass Campaign on Campus

With the presidential election less than a month away, it becomes crunch time for both campaigns in making their final push for victory. Both sides have launched television commercials, debates and speeches focused on impacting those many undecided potential voters who, ready or not, will step up to the polls and entrust their vote with one of the candidates.

On the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus, both Democrat and Republican groups have spent the last month spreading the word of their representative by targeting the more ambivalent students whose vote could help get their candidate in office.

UMass Senior and President of the campus Republican Club, Greg Collins, often sits with his organization a couple times a week by an informational table marked by a “McCain/Palin” poster, handing out bumper stickers and talking to some undecided students. “A decent number of students stopped by our table in the Campus Center and asked us about getting McCain paraphernalia and such for themselves. They seem genuinely interested.” Collins and his club have also been invited to represent the Republican Party at various debates on campus, organized by RAs and The Daily Collegian.

Not only have they tried reaching the student body here on campus, but Collins says the club also moved off campus to various venues in order to help out the Senator John McCain’s campaign. “We phone banked last week in Springfield. We’re going to do that again tonight…We’re going to go to New Hampshire on October 18^th and go door to door campaigning.”

The UMass Democrat Club have also remained very active on and off campus over the past month by promoting voter registration. Emma Einhorn, a senior and member of the club says, “We’ve been doing so much voter registration. We have an event almost every day from now until the deadline.” The club has set up tables in the campus center and dining halls, while also visiting classrooms.

Einhorn says the club has also spent a fair share of their time doing off campus work, similar to that of the Republican Club. “We go up to New Hampshire every single weekend to campaign for Obama. We have a phone bank set up in Sunderland that works six days a week to make phone calls for Obama. I mean…just stuff, all the time.”

Both clubs disagree on how the economic crisis that has headlined the news for the past couple weeks is affecting students. Einhorn said that the problem isn’t creating any more political followers on campus, only because the students don’t fully understand the crisis. “It has been limited recently to the stock market, a region of the economy that students are not generally involved in. Also, students pay very little in taxes, so this issue, while very important and grave, does not affect politics on campus as it does elsewhere.”

Collins disagrees with Einhorn’s notion, but not completely. He feels as though other factors that surround students have helped spark the interest. “I would say the presence of Obama in general has excited some students more than any one particular election issue. Also, I hate to say it, but Saturday Night Live skits and Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert has also contributed heavily to the increased involvement with politics among students at this time – for better or for worse.”

As far as noticing interest among the students, both club’s representatives say it’s growing. Collin’s said, “There has definitely been an increase in political awareness this semester compared to my previous five semesters on campus…They seem genuinely interested, as do Democrats, (students and faculty alike) who have stopped by our table just to talk about the election in a civil manner.”

Einhorn further said, “There has been tons of excitement. Students see our table and start shouts and chants for their preferred candidate. Students are ready for this election, one that it will be the most important election of our lifetime and for many people including myself, it will be their first presidential election.”