Features

Despite the fact that most Stuyvesant students will be unable to vote in the 2008 presidential election, many are still making an effort to become involved in politics. In a Spectator poll, almost one in five sophomores and juniors said they were planning on campaigning for one of the candidates in the coming elections.

Next year, sophomores Matthew Leiwant and Michael May will start a club at Stuyvesant to canvas for Senator Barack Obama should he win the Democratic nomination.

“Many politicians and people in the political world ignore young people and then wonder why no one votes in this country,” Leiwant said. “The main reason is that they do not feel involved. Michael May and I both feel it is important to get involved and that is why we are starting this club. I am in touch with Grassroots Campaign and I am trying to get a grant to bring club members down to Pennsylvania next year to canvas for Obama. If we do not get the grant, we will raise the money ourselves. We will also work inside the Stuyvesant community and inside the City of New York to raise awareness.”

Sophomore Sharada Sridhar, who is also planning on volunteering for Obama, said, “I decided I wanted to directly work with Obama’s campaign when I realized that it would be the step that I would be taking to better America. I would be sharing in the ‘we’ of ‘Yes we can.’”

Even those who aren’t directly campaigning for a candidate are still making an effort to become involved in politics. Last year, current junior Philip Kim interned at the immigration office of Senator Hillary Clinton. “A friend of mine had been working in the same office for a few years, and he asked me if I would like to help him out,” Kim said.

“I started off working there doing various things such as filing mail into different categories, organizing office space, clearing out old immigration cases, and so on. As I became more experienced, I worked on the computers using a system called IQ to work on some immigration cases,” Kim said. “I thought the experience would be very interesting and it has been […] my parents are immigrants, so some things about the whole immigration process were applicable to my family.”

However, this interest in politics is not universal at Stuyvesant. Quite a few students are alarmingly ignorant of even basic facts about the election. In the same Spectator poll, a third of the freshmen said they didn’t know the names of the candidates in the current elections, and almost half didn’t know what a primary is. None of the freshmen polled said they were planning on volunteering for a candidate.

“I haven’t even thought about it,” freshman Abie Sidell said.

Equally surprising is the fact that few seniors are actively involved in the campaigns. While almost all seniors are aware of general information about the elections, only one in 26 seniors said they were planning to volunteer for a candidate.

Most seniors choose not to volunteer for political reasons. “I’m not volunteering for anyone because I’m not excited about the candidates. I thought that the best democratic candidate was Edwards, but he’s no longer in the race,” senior Alex Blamm said.

Others stay out of the campaigns for ethical reasons. “I choose not to volunteer for a candidate because I think everyone should just be able to make their own choice without any outside influences,” senior Albert Manina said. “The whole point of a democracy is that it represents the opinions of the people.”

Even so, most students still feel that it’s important for students to be involved regardless of whether or not they’re eligible to vote. “Students have to be aware of politics because it’s something that affects us,” freshman Pricilla Odinmah said. “Learning about what’s going on in the world is just as important as the academics we learn in school.”

Leiwant agrees. “The country is making the decision of who will hold the most important office in our nation for the next four years,” he said. “That is a very big deal and I feel all Americans, regardless of age, should be aware of and participate in this process.”