The Daily Egyptian is published by the students of SIU at Carbondale. Except during vacations and exam weeks, The Daily Egyptian is published Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and TWThF during the summer semester."

Debate invades Washington University

ST. LOUIS - The air of Washington University's quad was ripe with the scent of wet grass and permanent markers, but one smell was more potent than both of them.

That smell was politics.

"This is a different sort of election," said Eric Seelig, a Washington University sophomore who showed up Friday armed with Sharpies and placards, hoping to get his artistic support of Sen. John Kerry shown on CNN. "This is a huge generation coming to vote."

It may be a huge generation of college students who the talking heads predict will show up to the polls this year, but when it came to Friday's presidential debate, students at Washington University got to bask alone in the spotlight.

On a campus cut off to all but university students and credentialed members of the media, Seelig was just one of hundreds of students who came out to demonstrate, observe the madness and, if lucky, appear on television.

Of course, this isn't the first time for the small St. Louis school.

A campus with a student population of about 13,000, Washington has played host to two other recent presidential debates - one in 1992 and the other in 2000. The population, however, has the opportunity to change from debate to debate, so the students who showed up Friday had no idea what to expect or how they would be received.

For the most part, they were amazed at how their campus had been changed from a school to a media circus in a timeframe of just a week.

"It's been crazy," said Amanda Roberts, a junior who noted that MSNBC had been setting up shop on campus all week and that CNN had arrived just a day or two later. "It's awesome, but it's kind of annoying."

Soon, though, Seelig was lost in the crowd of students mashed against the CNN stage, which was set up in the quad. Momentarily lost in the hum of anticipating conversation, the group of students exploded in noise when Anderson Cooper, host of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360°," took the stage for his afternoon broadcast.

While most of the home-made political signs forming a collage behind him touted either Kerry or President Bush, some were goofy, some were silly, and one simply offered Cooper a cell phone number to call.

Ben Kay, a freshman from Cleveland, Ohio, said the political presence on campus was fascinating but had led to a much more secure atmosphere.

"We're fenced in," Kay said of the tightened campus security. "You'd think they'd be more like Nazis about it, but it's not too bad. It's just a hassle to get anywhere."

Seelig, pointing out that a student ID or a parking permit has been sufficient enough to get on and off the campus, said the presence of the debate created a surreal atmosphere on campus.

"It's a weird feeling," Seelig said. "Your mind doesn't really grasp it. Tomorrow, it will be gone."

As for political affiliations, Roberts pointed out that Washington University students will almost certainly be stacked in the Kerry column when the election rolls around and that it is "pretty much a liberal school." While most of the campaign signs toted around campus throughout the day screamed the names of Kerry and Edwards, some students noted that it is not the same for all of them.

Patrick Murphy, a senior also from Cleveland, stood back a few paces in the quad, handing out Bush-Cheney signs to anyone who wanted one. He said despite the liberal surface, the university's student population has a strong Republican undercurrent.

"It's a misconception," Murphy said. "There's a fairly large contingent of conservatives here."

With just hours to go until the debate's beginning and conclusion, however, Murphy knows that things will change soon and "will be back to normal on Monday." Despite this, he said he was excited to see the political events on campus during the week and is looking forward to a different kind of election next month.

"This year is different from others in the past," Murphy said. "This election, people are more aware of their right to vote."

 

 

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