I touched the fire. Well, sort of.
Consistent chants of "Touch the fire!" hurtled by thousands of upperclassmen slowly dulled my judgment until I quasi-intuitively gravitated toward the bonfire. The crowd's enthusiasm enveloped me until I could almost envision my hands caressing the flames. Mob mentality clouded my personal judgment until I finally realized that deciding not to cremate my hands was smarter than following the crowd's advice.
In his recent column, Peter Blair '12 asserts that our generation displays a similar tendency to mindlessly embrace Barack Obama and Sarah Palin's campaigns for the upcoming election ("Informed Enthusiasm," Oct. 19). According to Blair, youth support for both candidates is based on messianic overtures and not on the candidates' platforms or qualifications. Blair equates our generation's shared enthusiasm and endorsement for a candidate with running around his or her political bonfire with little or no justification beyond an idealistic desire to change the world.
I disagree, however, that young voters view either Obama or Palin as political bonfires to run around and touch in the next election. While voters from various ideologies and age groups gravitate toward candidates based on hype and imagery, few voters continue to support candidates on hype alone. Messianic imagery may initially lure most voters to a political bandwagon, but I -- and most young voters that I've spoken to -- justify continued support based on campaign stances, platforms and ideology. Realistically, we do not expect that a savior will miraculously fix the U.S. health-care system by building a political bonfire, nor do we expect that running around it with our endorsement will accomplish that same goal.
Instead, I support Obama for his plan to reform, expand and make health care more affordable. Sure, his charisma, youth and intelligence appeal to me, but my peers and I cite his platforms, and not solely his personal appeal, as the primary reasons for our support. Some listed their views on health care, economic policy and reproductive rights in supporting Obama. A few called Obama "our generation's candidate," pointing out his willingness to reach across party lines and his ability to appeal to the public as a whole.
The situation is similar for my conservative peers. In their decisions to support McCain, some cited his relatively longer experience in the Senate. A few mentioned social issues. One noted his economically conservative background, while another criticized liberal ideology as a whole.
In short, none of the 25 or so peers I polled justified their candidate choices on hype. Granted, I encountered more liberal leaning voters than conservative ones, but I didn't detect a running-around-the-bonfire-esque collective mentality from either party's supporters. When prodded, most people justified their decisions with concrete policy or personal ideology.
Despite the messianic imagery touted by some, most young voters support a candidate based on the soundness of his proposed policies, not an idealistic visions of him as a savior. While some people's decisions are made on savior-like imagery, most voters realize a crowd's endorsement doesn't necessarily make a candidate's policies any better -- just like thousands of people chanting "Touch the fire" doesn't make touching it any better of an idea. Most freshmen realized, as I did, that the throng of people supporting the idea had little bearing on its merit, just like a messianic bandwagon surrounding a candidate does not necessarily yield a better nominee.
Youthful enthusiasm does not automatically mean blindly following a candidate. Similiarly, voters who support a candidate weigh his platforms and policies against their own and don't blindly accept him as political gospel. The majority of youth voters do not display a "touch the fire" mentality in supporting a candidate. My peers and I vote in the same way we "touched" the fire -- on our own accord after it collapsed, not on the crowd's accord while it was still burning.
