Big trend on campus: Independents who shun political labels

KRT NEWSFEATURES

Tim Jones / Chicago Tribune (KRT)

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Campus resistance to the war in Iraq is growing. President Bush's approval rating among students is sliding. And the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is about as popular as an 8 a.m. class.

The tide of student political opinion that only six months ago was solidly behind Bush is shifting, and interest in the upcoming election among young adults is sharply higher than it was four years ago at this time.

But trying to figure out what all this may mean in November is tricky because the nation's 13 million college students are an unpredictable and civically lethargic bloc of voters whose allegiances trend away from the partisan labels of conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat. Political independence is the most popular campus declaration, and it is producing a new strain of volatility: Political indecision.

Disengaged from the established political process yet informed on major issues, the students are a wild-card generation that grew up in the booming affluence of the 1990s.

"You have this big new demographic of pretty-well-educated people who tend to be quite liberal on social issues, reasonably conservative on fiscal issues and betwixt and between on questions like abortion, crime, the death penalty and welfare," said Bill Galston, a professor of public affairs at the University of Maryland. "It's going to be an increasingly powerful demographic going forward. They are still very much a work in progress."

The turmoil that centered a generation ago on the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War plays out in different ways now as students grapple with the rising death toll in Iraq, the economy and gay marriage, the issue that clearly sets them apart from their parents.

While about 60 percent of Americans overall oppose same-sex marriages, a nearly equal percentage on campuses support it, according to a recent poll from the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics at Harvard University.

"President Bush has been using the gay marriage issue as a smoke screen because he doesn't want to deal with other issues like weapons of mass destruction, the troops still over there and an economy that is worsening," said Candice Adams, a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "He claims to be a unifier, but it's divisive to use that issue."

Randi Bradley, a senior studying politics and literature at the University of Maryland, described herself as "pro-marriage for all families." She had a pro-gay-marriage button on her purse that said "If you want to sanctify marriage, outlaw divorce."

Public opinion analysts say student attitudes toward gay marriage reflect their upbringing – they have grown up with social diversity, much more so than their parents, and they view different lifestyles as far less threatening.

The University of Maryland's Galston also serves as executive director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, a non-profit group that studies civic and political engagement of Americans ages 15 to 25. He said it remains to be seen whether the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will be a defining moment for this generation.

Early student support for the war in Iraq may have been in part a response to Sept. 11.

"I completely thought the war was justified. But if we're going to fight it, we have to fight it to win," said James Schindler, an economics major at Notre Dame. "It's our duty to stay there. It would be a slap in the face of the military to leave now."

Margaret Cooley, a sophomore business major at the University of Arizona, and Joni Saquilayan, a pre-med junior at the Tucson campus, said they are torn over the war. Saquilayan said she is leaning toward voting for Bush.

"I don't agree with the concept of war, but we had to get Saddam Hussein, and he was after us and he had murdered hundreds of thousands of people," Saquilayan said.

Cooley, who described herself as more of a Democrat, also favored Bush, although she said her support has been shaken by recent events in Iraq. She said she now is undecided.

The survey last month from the Institute of Politics found campus support for the war – the most important issue for students, the poll said – had dropped 9 percentage points since October, to 49 percent.

Tiffany Jollands, a Michigan State University dietetics major, said she had been inclined to vote for Bush because of his handling of the war against terrorism. Not anymore.

Jollands, a self-described "Navy brat" who has no desire to follow her father's military footsteps, said she is troubled by developments in Iraq and declares herself politically undecided.

"Forcing these guys to be there so long isn't right. Bush is too hard on them," Jollands said. "He's asking too much. ... We're doing it all."

At the East Lansing campus, the site of anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and '70s, there were only the faintest rumblings of protest in advance of next Friday's graduation address by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, one of the architects of the war in Iraq. While some anti-war Michigan State seniors have vowed not to attend the ceremony, nothing hints at widespread objections.

David King, a professor of public policy at Harvard and co-author of "The Generation of Trust," said Americans born after 1975 are the most supportive of the military.

"One of the reasons is they don't have to face the prospect of the draft," King said. "They can be patriotic without being threatened. ... It's a different world."

Part of that difference is reflected in the tendency toward political independence. Forty-one percent of college students identify themselves as independent, compared with 24 percent Republican and 32 percent Democrat, the Harvard poll found. Analysts say the trend away from established political parties is a response to the failure of the Republican and Democratic parties to energize young people.

The Harvard poll indicated Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, holding a wide lead over Bush among those who say they definitely will vote in November, 56 percent to 33 percent.

That shift to Kerry, however, was apparently born more from dissatisfaction with Bush and fueled by the struggling economy and the war.

"For me, it is going to come down to choosing the lesser of two evils," said Shijuade Kadree, a political science and sociology major at Emory University in Atlanta. Kadree said she probably would vote for Kerry "because I disapprove of Bush more."

Even among some declared Democrats, there was a palpable lack of enthusiasm for Kerry.

William Tinkler, a sophomore and political science major, is on the executive board of the Young Democrats at Emory.

"I will support Kerry, but to what degree is another question," said Tinkler, who worked on the presidential campaign of Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. "I don't feel he is the right candidate to run against Bush because his voting record during four terms in the Senate makes it difficult for him. He is weighed down by compromise."

A national poll released last week by the Vanishing Voter Project reported that overall interest in the campaign is higher than it was at this point four years ago – 42 percent of respondents say they are paying "a great deal" or "quite a bit" of attention to the campaign. Interest is particularly strong among young people, the poll found.

But those robust numbers generate plenty of skepticism because the percentage of people ages 18 to 24 who vote has been dropping steadily since 1972.

Galston said a "sense of disengagement" is one reason that young people are more likely to be independents.

"There's an interesting juxtaposition with young people," Galston said. "They tend to be much more trusting of the government than their older brothers and sisters, but they are much more likely than their parents or grandparents to view civic involvement as a choice and not an obligation or duty.

"Citizenship tends to be optional. It's something you watch other people do."

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(Tribune correspondents Michael Martinez, Dahleen Glanton and Kristina Herrndobler contributed to this report.)

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© 2004, Chicago Tribune.

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Erik S. Lesser / KRT Campus

J.B.Tarter, center, a Republican, participates in a debate among Republican and Democratic students at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 22, 2004.

John Costello / KRT Campus

PHILADELPHIA, PA – U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, (D-MA), surrounded by students Allie Eichen, 21, left, Camila Aguirre, 20, center, and Sylvia Yu, 22, right, poses for a photograph at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Friday, April 16, 2004.

Chuck Kennedy / KRT Campus

Supporters holding photos of loved ones overseas cheer U.S. President George W. Bush speaks at a rally in Cincinatti, Ohio ending a two-day campaign bus tour in Michigan and Ohio.