Presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., stressed the importance of young people becoming politically engaged in the upcoming election during a conference call with college reporters Tuesday.

“We want students to recognize their power in determining the outcome of this election and have power over their own lives,” he said.

Pointing to the influence of young people during the civil-rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s, Kerry said college students would have enormous influence to enact change in society if they would only “re-emerge as a political force in America.”

“Young people have this enormous power, and they really have to understand it and embrace it and use it,” he said.

In an effort to capture the student vote this election year, Kerry recently initiated a college tour to talk about issues that affect college students. In particular, the Massachusetts senator plans to talk about the economy and Iraq, as well as issues such as Pell Grants and GI benefits that specifically pertain to students.

Don Eggert, co-chair of Students for Kerry, said he expects the Kerry campaign to give a tremendous amount of support for student organizers in swing states such as Wisconsin. He said the overall strategy toward students would be “energetic” as Kerry addresses issues like the environment, civil rights, jobs and foreign policy that matter to young people.

Although Eggert said he expects the majority of students to vote Democratic, he stressed that the most important factor in ensuring a Kerry victory is not convincing students to vote Kerry, but convincing them to vote at all.

“The question isn’t how they will vote, but will they vote. In that respect, you definitely can’t take the student vote for granted,” he said.

Members in the Bush camp, however, say the Kerry campaign should not take the student vote for granted. Angela Frozena, chair of College Republicans of Wisconsin, said that it is a “perception of the past” that all young people are liberal-minded.

“There is an increasing trend in conservative thought among students,” she said. “I’m hopeful that that trend towards more conservative views will prove positive for the president at the polls.”

Frozena also noted that the Bush campaign is taking the 18- to 24-year-old demographic seriously. She said events like March Madness, where a plethora of student volunteers signed up to work on the Bush campaign, show the president is targeting college students for the 2004 election.

Although Frozena acknowledged it is difficult to know whether such targeting strategies will translate to student votes for Bush come November, she remains optimistic it will make a difference in what is expected to be an exceedingly tight race.

“I’m hopeful that it will pay dividends, and I think it will pay dividends,” she said.