“Get Falked up!” “Doyle Rules!” These, along with other eye-catching slogans, have popped up all over campus in recent weeks in order to alert students to vote in today’s primaries for the next governor.
On a campus rated seventh-most-politically-active in the nation by the Princeton Review, student involvement is widespread.
University of Wisconsin junior Steven Singh, this year’s chairman for the College Democrats of Madison, says much of the concern campaigners have right now is simply alerting people to vote in time.
“It is hard to get students active in time for the primaries because most people think of the elections as being in November,” Singh said. “We try especially hard to reach freshmen because many of them just turned 18 and are not even thinking about the primaries yet.”
Another UW Democrat, junior Taylor Patterson, has been putting in time on and off campus working for Jim Doyle’s campaign.
“We try to alert students to vote with the flyers we hang around campus, by going to games to hand out literature and all of the chalking you see around town,” Patterson said. “I have also volunteered off-campus as well by going to different political rallies in the state.”
Although vastly different from Democrats in their political views, Republicans across campus are taking similar measures to attempt to secure votes for incumbent governor Scott McCallum.
Vice Chair of the College Republicans of Madison Benjamin Krautkramer said he has been hard at work in recent weeks to support McCallum.
“Handing out pamphlets at Badger games, hanging flyers around the campus and working in the offices are just some of the things we do to promote our candidate,” Krautkramer said. “And there will be even more work after the primaries when we know who the Democratic candidate will be.”
The McCallum camp has been working hard all summer as well to win the support of students. Weekly entertainment options called “Concerts on the Square” were sponsored by the city of Madison and were a hot-spot for students trying to educate voters on McCallum’s policies and goals for Wisconsin.
Last year’s vice-chair of College Republicans and current director of press and public relations for senatorial candidate Phil Alfonsi, UW senior Julia Kraschnewski spends a majority of her time on the campaign trail.
“I work on press releases, radio publicity and just trying to get people out there to vote in general,” Kraschnewski said. “The main concern is making sure that students do in fact vote, because that is half the battle.”
As November draws closer, students looking to get involved in either the Democratic or Republican Parties on campus can further their interest by attending this week’s informational meetings. Republicans interested in volunteering for their party can attend an information meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in Grainger Hall. The Democrats’ student kickoff meeting is Wednesday night at a location which is yet to be determined.
