MOST college students will watch TV at some point tonight. Some of you will watch the presidential debates. Shame on the rest of you.
This column was written before the debates actually aired, yet I would bet something important happened in them that students should have been watching. Many students don't pay attention because they don't think it matters. On the contrary, becoming an informed voter is more important now than it has been in our lifetimes.
Political junkies as well as ordinary Americans have expected a Bush/Gore contest since early last year, which tends to diminish enthusiasm, even for government majors. The lack of excitement translates into the assumption that this election doesn't matter, that we'll all just keep trucking along.
Political columnist William Safire writes of the future using "Gorebush" as his term for the future president. Ralph Nader disdainfully refers to "Republicrats" in an effort to woo the liberal branch of the Democratic party.
But the cynics are wrong. Although in superficial ways they may seem the same, the candidates have strong ideological differences, and the means to reflect them in practice.
Anyone who recently has seen pictures of the United States Supreme Court will notice something: They're getting old. Two justices most likely will retire before 2004, and reelection could give this year's president-elect the chance to appoint four justices to the Supreme Court. The current court tends to vote back and forth on conservative and liberal positions, so that even one vote makes a difference ("The Supreme Court issue," The Nation, Oct. 9).
Of course, presidential choice isn't everything: Congress has a say. And frequently justices tend to vote less liberal or conservative than they're expected to. But the current balance is extremely delicate. In its last term, the Supreme Court managed to anger both liberals and conservatives, which means it's doing its job of staying apolitical.
Several issues of importance that could be affected by changing one justice. The obvious issue is abortion: Since most states have anti-abortion laws on the books, a loss of constitutional protection would make the procedure immediately illegal. The federal role in crime and education - though less visible consitutional issues - also will be affected.
The closeness of this race gives young Americans a unique opportunity. By this point in 1996 it was clear that Bob Dole would lose. This year, the candidates are in a statistical dead heat.
The polls change so frequently that The New York Times argues, "the only things ... inevitable now are that the ... results will be close - perhaps as close as the Kennedy-Nixon race of 1960" ("The debates begin," Oct. 1). That's the same race where the opinions of young voters turned the tide, and it became a textbook case for the power of the young.
Such a close race gives us a needed opportunity to make our demands known. Young people's support of Kennedy gave them a central place in his administration's policies.
By contrast, the current political debate ignores the needs of anyone under 40. This is fundamental generational unfairness. The elderly always vote, so politicians listen. What they want now is a new prescription benefit for Medicare. The program is doable right now, but when the massive baby boomer generation retires, we'll be stuck holding the bag. On the Republican side, Bush wants to repeal the estate tax, which helps wealthy elderly and their boomer heirs.
Either way it will affect our pocketbooks. Only 36 percent of Americans between 18 and 24 voted in 1996 ("Is there a future for voting in pajamas?" The Washington Post, Sept. 18). This gives us zero credibility, which our generation sorely needs if it expects to affect the fiscal choices made by our government.
Students more concerned about whether to buy a Mercedes or Lexus with their fabulous job at a start-up need to wake up. Large sums of money are being tossed about in campaign proposals, and if the current surplus predictions don't hold up - a very likely proposition - the federal debt will grow or taxes will eat into those nice incomes.
Students know voting is a civic responsibility, but we often ignore the most important part of this duty: becoming informed. If you don't watch, you have two more chances. It may not make your mind up right away, but it's a start. Voting is important. After spending our adolescence whining about how our elders don't listen, we shouldn't neglect the best way to get their attention: with the ballot.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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