University indifference noted by local parties
Plastic tables adorned with papers and laptops, a couch and whiteboards decorate the room’s perimeter while a fluorescent glow fills the center. Campaign signs ornament the wall of windows facing sixth street toward John’s Alley. The music of scripts read with a smile greets any visitor before a host could inquire, “How may I help you?”
Most volunteers at the Latah County Democrats’ headquarters are older. Throughout the night, parents and grandparents will outnumber undergraduates by an embarrassing margin. Tonight’s drill is coordinated by a woman who looks to be in her mid-to-late twenties. Volunteers appear affable, or if it’s their first time, anxious. The room’s shared vision needs no voice: get our locals in office, and if we can help that Obama guy, so much the better.
Oct. 16 is another day in the Latah County Democrats’ 2012 “get out the vote” effort. Armed with scripts, headsets and auto dialers, the night’s mission is to ensure Democrats who requested absentee ballots receive and send them back before Nov. 2. Few recipients take offense at perceived privacy violation. More offer encouragement, happy to hear their party in action. Most respond with pleasant indifference: eager to disconnect, too kind to hang up.
Finding a fitting time slot between full-time work and a life is a challenge for most volunteers, but Democratic organizers are more than accommodating and more than accepting of any help. The party’s willingness to work with my time constraints and the ease in connecting with organizers wound up the least predictable part of my experience. Simply, anyone with an ounce of motivation and a couple of spare hours can work for a campaign, no experience necessary.
Latah County is part of Idaho’s 1st Congressional District. Despite our state’s reputation, the 1st District has been within Democratic reach for the past few election cycles. In 2006, Republicans won the district by just 12,000 votes. In 2008, Democrats took the seat by 4,000 votes. In the Tea Party year of 2010, Republicans took the seat back, but in the best year for conservatives since 1948, Republicans won by only 20,000.
I asked how Latah County Democrats would mine the wealth of Democratic voters at the university. To my surprise, there is no “get out the vote” effort on campus. University students often express distaste for politics, identifying apathy and moral supremacy as synonymous. Giving up, they perceive, equates to transcendence.
Latah County leans Democratic, but Idaho’s 1st district scrapes each vote it can. It should concern students that the sea of votes they represent isn’t worth the time of the party they overwhelmingly align with. Students might consider consistent indifference a choice to walk away from politics, but on the Palouse, the rejection is mutual.
Brian Marceau can be reached at [email protected]