Former U.S. Senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards spent October visiting college campuses on his “Opportunity Rocks” tour in an effort to get young people involved in fighting poverty.
And last week, five U.S. Senators, including Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.), a speculative front-runner for the Democratic 2008 presidential nomination, came to the college capital of the country to rally voters and promote the Women Senate 2006 campaign.
The timing of these events has raised fresh questions about which Democrats are planning a bid for the White House, and their focus on students may signal a shift in their approach to court voters.
The potential Democratic candidates for the 2008 Presidential election “know the importance of the college vote,” said Amaya Smith, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee.
According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-old citizens voted in the 2004 Presidential election.
“It has been the trend in the past that Democrats carry the youth vote,” Smith said. Democratic leaders make an additional outreach to college students because they know the importance of their vote, she said. “They also try to focus their messages on issues important to the college population.”
David Ginsberg, a spokesman for Edwards, stressed that his campaign was strictly about poverty, not the 2008 election. Edwards made the decision to call on college-aged students in his fight against poverty because they have started so many movements in the country’s history, Ginsberg said.
“History is made from youth college movements,” he said. “Look at Vietnam and the civil rights movements, which students were responsible for.”
“We believe young people have the energy, passion and ability to take the lead, like they have at so many other critical moments in our country’s history,” Edwards said in a statement.
According to Ginsberg, Opportunity Rocks has a two-part mission: to get young people more involved in community service, and to get them to advocate policies that expand opportunity for people living in poverty.
“In this post-Katrina world, the issues were exposed and we had to take a new approach to tackle poverty,” Ginsberg said.
Ginsberg called the reaction from the tour “fantastic,” saying it has made students more dedicated to the issue.
Opportunity Rocks came about as a partnership with the Center for Promise and Opportunity, an organization Edwards founded to fight poverty in the United States.
At the College Tour 2005, students were asked to take the Opportunity Rocks pledge and commit to 20 hours of community service per semester. The campaign will be posting local service opportunities on its website, providing web-based tools for recruiting friends and tracking service efforts, and provide a forum for students to blog about their experiences and learn from and meet each other.
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