"Your Vote Counts!"

Although everyone has heard the statement, “Every Vote Counts,” and it is slightly cliché, I feel that this election will be a very critical one in not only history but in the whole projection of American views, values, nature and later analysis examining statistics. As a first time voter it is almost overwhelming to investigate and keep up with all the issues and messages the media and society has been bombarding us with. Now in an effort to move past the “Your Vote Counts” public service announcement, I would like to shift my attention in response to Dr Sunshine Hillygus’ lecture.

I would like to begin by saying that I loved the way she conveyed so much information clearly and concisely, her charts and graphs served as a great visual aid, the presentation was very neatly organized, and she expanded on current views and perspectives. I agree with Ayres, on her comment, “It was nice to have a speaker with no agenda. She was someone who wanted to tell us the facts and not push her personal views on us.” Further expanding on the lecture, beyond the notion of this election being historically different, I liked the way she pointed out that there are more key points besides age, sex, and race such as the fact that there is no incumbent running, the vast “Anti-Bush” sentiment and call for “change” in terms of status quo being significant factors.

In addition to this, just as intriguing as the material she was presenting, were the questions and thoughts provoked. I thought it was interesting how she asked the question, “Do campaigns matter?” From the perspective of the average citizen, this question should be a no brainer, “yes,” however, I feel that more often than not it is just taken as tradition and is part of the game. Conceptually speaking, the purpose of a campaign should be to serve as the instrument(s) and structure for raising political social consciousness in answering the inquiry of: “What matters?” “To whom does this matter?” and “Why does this matter?”

In conclusion, I would just like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture, learned a lot, and left with a few new thoughts to consider more analytically. In response to the election as the campaigns intensify, I eagerly await November 4th because I am tired of all the petty campaign strategies (although sometimes entertaining), media being nit-picky about how a candidate is presented/represented , and finally want to see the results.