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St. Cloud State University
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St. Cloud Readies for Caucuses
By Adam Hammer
Published:
Thursday, February 24, 2005
DFL party members are expecting a higher than usual turnout for Tuesday's caucuses.
Although caucus turnout is generally low, a highly-publicized presidential candidate race has many people talking.
"In the presidential year, there will be more people coming out," said SCSU political science professor Homer Williamson.
Caucuses run on the first Tuesday of March every general election year. They serve as a platform for community members to discuss political issues, elect local party leadership and pass resolutions and proposals to a higher level.
"Caucuses are a meeting of people willing to affiliate themselves with a party in Minnesota," Williamson said. "You can influence, to some degree, parties' issues."
Members of Republican, Green and Independent parties will also host caucus meetings around the state.
Regardless of campaign issues and caucus turnout, students will be affected by politics and the presidential outcome.
"Politics, in general, affects students more than they know," Stacey Springer, College Democrats chairperson at SCSU said. "Decisions are being made about the economy, about jobs, about funding; for the things that we find closest to our hearts."
With 1,151 delegate votes at stake from the 10 states holding caucuses and primaries on Super Tuesday, the campaign trail for this year's Democratic presidential hopefuls is being driven with the pedals to the boards.
Unlike the primaries in other states, people at caucuses do not officially vote for their presidential hopefuls.
However, the candidates still seem aware that Minnesota is on the bill.
Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., made two appearances in St. Paul last week including a stop at Hamline University Friday. Front-runner Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., spoke to more than 2,400 at Macalester College in St. Paul Wednesday.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich also rallied supporters Wednesday.
"While the promises that the presidential candidates make may not seem directly related to us as students, the legislation that is proposed by the president and passed by Congress will hit us whether we are ready for them or not," Springer said.
Locally, campaign efforts for Kerry are being aided by Minnesota Students for Kerry representative Richard Carlbom, a student at St. John's University, who helped arrange Monday's visit by Gov. Jean Sha-heen.
A telephone reminder service for Kerry supporters of the upcoming caucus is currently a top priority for St. Cloud.
"It's honestly the most important thing we're doing between now until Tuesday," Casey Slaughter, a campaign coordinator for Kerry, said. Slaughter was among Carlbom and other Kerry supporters at Thursday's Kerry in 2004 meet-up at Caribou Coffee.
The meet-up was part of a nationwide program for Kerry supporters and consisted of people from all aspects of the St. Cloud community. For some, this was the first time they would be getting involved in campaigning for any candidate, Republican or Democrat.
Ken Grisnell, his wife Jenni and their 16-month-old daughter Gabby attended the meeting. Ken and Jenni were steadfast in commenting that if Bush were elected to another four-year term, they would probably move to Canada, where Ken was born.
"Politics aside, I don't trust him," Ken said. "Plain and simple."
Jason Donley, a senior at SCSU, also attended the meet-up as a new supporter of the Kerry campaign after Howard Dean, D-Ver., pulled out of the race.
"I was formerly a Howard Dean supporter," Donley said. "I switched over to Kerry because I feel he actually cares about people, he cares about me as a student."
Besides the jobs and economy platform that is a central point of campaigns by all candidates and the anti-Bush clause, higher education has been a hot topic, especially for Kerry and Edwards.
"They both have ideas about alternative funding for college, which have their pros and cons," Springer said.
Kerry is proposing a series of higher education plans. One of the plans would give a credit for each year of college on the first $4,000 paid in tuition. The credit will provide 100 percent of the first $1,000 and 50 percent on the rest.
He is also promoting a scholarship offering $1,000 for students to participate in early intervention programs that help prepare students for college, as well as a plan to provide the cost of four years at a public college for time spent in the national service.
"Kerry is more of the establishment guy, but not in a bad way," Springer said. "Edwards hasn't even completed a full term in the Senate, which was really a turn off to me at first. As the campaign has worn on, Edwards has proved through debates and other public presentations that he is a viable candidate."
The Edwards camp is promoting one year of free tuition for students attending public universities and community colleges.
In return for the free year, students will be required to come to college academically prepared and serve their communities for an average of 10 hours each week.
Edwards also wants to put an end to legacy programs that give preferential admissions to family of alumni.
According to Edwards, the legacy admissions preferences stack the deck against students who may be the first in their family to go to college.
For those studying to be teachers after college and those instructing courses now, Edwards also intends to invest in paying teachers better and increasing pay for teachers who take on the toughest jobs such as teaching in less desirable communities.
He also suggests opening a scholarship program that will pay for the education costs for students who make a five-year commitment to teach somewhere "top-flight" where teachers are in short supply.
Aside from differences of the top Democratic hopefuls, recent polls conducted by CBS News, Newsweek, Fox News and the CNN/USA Today Gallup polls showed that the majority said they would vote Democrat, regardless of the nominee on the presidential ballot.
A joint venture of Kerry and Edwards was also favored in the CBS News poll of 1,294 registered voters nationwide asked between Feb. 24-27.
Fifty percent said they would vote for a Kerry/Edwards platform.
Forty-two percent would opt for Bush/Cheney. Six percent were undecided.
"I advocate voting for who you feel will do the best job, the person who you would most like to represent you," Springer said. "For me, that is going to be a Democrat. I guess I should be telling everyone else how I think they should vote, but that always bothers me. I just want people to know how I feel and if that inspires them to check out my candidate, then I have done my job."
Nick Hanson & Adam Hammer
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