election day

On this historic election day when voter turnout is widely predicted to be high across the country, I am recalling the student government elections that I took part in when I was a student at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. I became involved in UTK's student government early in my collegiate career and was elected at the end of my freshman year to serve as a representative from the College of Liberal Arts on the Academic Council. I was one of a slate of candidates who ran with the Insight Party, and I have to admit that I was not a very good campaigner. I think I was only elected because (a) my last name started with a "B" which meant my name appeared near the top of the ballot and ( b) my first name was unusual. I am an introvert - I know I hadn't made enough friends during my first year on campus to be elected based on personal charisma.

I remember being surprised at how seriously my fellow party members took the election. I remember one fascinating conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing party's campaign logo - what message were they trying to communicating with their choice of font and color combination? Actually, there were three parties involved in that election, but we discounted the third party - Big Al and his Apathy ticket - as being a farce. We figured that truly apathetic voters wouldn't show up at the polls on election day. Boy, were we wrong. Big Al lost the 1983 student body presidency by only 100 votes, and the following spring he won in a landslide. Big Al's campaign was colorful, to say the least, with his proposal of building a chairlift to the hill, his commemorative campaign posters (collect all 12!), and the staged assassination attempt during a campus presidential debate. Big Al's campaign energized the student body, and voter turnout in April 1984 was the highest in a decade, with around 6,000 students casting ballots.

I hope that today Americans will turn out at the polls in droves. Let's set a new record for voter turnout. Now is no time for apathy. Even Big Al knows that.