Whether doing last-minute campaigning at sunrise, watching election results in a balloon-strewn Salomon 101 or simply doing work at the Sciences Library, Brown students found themselves swept up in yesterday's Super Tuesday presidential primaries.
The primaries, in which the Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls competed for their parties' nominations in 24 states, marked the high point of months of work by campus political groups hoping to win voters from nearby participating states such as Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The day started early for some members of Brown Students for Barack Obama, which shuttled students back and forth beginning at 6 a.m. from New Bedford, Mass., all day to hold signs at street corners and polling places and make phone calls to local voters. Herald Opinions Columnist Max Chaiken '09, coordinator for Students for Barack Obama, estimated that he had put 200 miles on his car driving back and forth between the group's meeting place at Bagel Gourmet on Brook Street and New Bedford.
"Students are really trying to sort of catch the wave," Chaiken said, adding that in the last week and a half Brown's Obama supporters have become "a true movement." Nick Greene '10, who said that he had been planning to join the 6 a.m. trip but slept through his alarm, held a sign in front of a New Bedford middle school. "We've been getting a lot of honks all day," he said. They would be less lucky with votes, as Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., won the state.
Walker Ray '11, who campaigned in New Bedford over the weekend and returned yesterday afternoon, said with a laugh, "if the election were to be decided by who honks the most, I think we would definitely win in a landslide."
Ian Nappier '10, who spent the afternoon making calls to voters in Colorado and North Dakota, said he got involved with politics for the first time on Friday after hearing Obama's victory speech for the South Carolina primaries. He spoke with enthusiasm of his recent campaign experiences, such as an event in Massachusetts on Saturday at which Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick spoke from a podium, close enough so that "when he was waving his arm it felt like he was going to hit me."
"It's just so weird to go from not really caring to meeting the governor of a big state," he said.
Members of Students for Hillary congregated in Minden Lounge yesterday evening to walk over to Salomon 101, where the Janus Forum was hosting an event to watch the primary results as they were announced. Though choosing not to campaign yesterday, the handful of members of Students for Hillary that gathered looked with expectation towards the primaries after weeks of phone-banking.
Ivy Martinez '10 said the group's Bring Your Own Phone calling events - or "BYOP" - have been successful in attracting young people to the campaign. Martinez estimated that the group has grown slightly of late but added that she was surprised when "a ton of people" came up to her yesterday to wish the Clinton campaign good luck.
"I was like, 'Where were you before?'" she said with a laugh.
The Students for Hillary group was greeted by a buzzing Salomon 101, where students sampled quickly disappearing pizza while watching Wolf Blitzer announce incoming primary results on a big-screen projector. Jesse Maddox '08, director of the Janus Forum, a group that promotes political discussion on campus, said the event was created to "bring together people of different ideologies" to watch the election returns.
"What better way than to have a big political party?" he said.
Abe Halpert '09 planned to do some homework while intermittently watching the political coverage in Salomon. He thought that "about half (the campus) is pretty excited for Obama," while "the other half can't really tell the difference between Obama and Clinton," but added that either way, the excitement was "way more than you'd usually see" for political elections.
Mark Fuller '09, who said he voted in the New Jersey primary for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he wasn't bothered by the vocal presence of Democratic groups like Students for Obama on campus. Fuller said he thought that McCain was doing well in national polls against either potential Democratic nominee. "I'm not too worried," he said.
Meanwhile, other students across campus responded to the political coverage with a variety of intensity. While Sean Bagge '10 said he had "no plans whatsoever" to watch media coverage, Carla Cornejo '10 said that she'd been "glued to CNN all day." One could hear the faint sounds of televisions tuned to the primaries throughout the halls of Keeney Quadrangle.
Steve Holman '11, who tuned into CNN in his Keeney double, said that he voted for Clinton in his home state of Utah. He said he chose not to participate in campaigning before the primaries with the Clinton group on campus mostly because he "hadn't really heard of it," while he "heard a lot about the Obama one." He added that everyone on his hall seems to be "a really big fan" of Obama.
Some students prepared for primary festivities going far beyond the occasional peek at the television or Internet. Halpert said at the Janus-sponsored event that he heard of betting pools as well as drinking games where participants take shots when their candidate wins a state. With 24 states and two Democratic candidates, he said, "it could get ugly."
At Alpha Epsilon Pi on Wriston Quadrangle, several fraternity brothers were participating in one such drinking game, which involved a complex set of rules where the type of alcohol to be consumed was based on how candidates fared in various states, in addition to "wild card" shots where all participants were supposed to drink. For example, "If Obama says, 'yes we can,' you take a shot," said one student, who said he spent about two hours creating the game. "It was a lot of fun making it, so even if no one plays it, I'm happy."
As the day drew to a close, members of Students for Obama and Students for Hillary looked forward with nervous excitement to the results. Jeremy Feigenbaum '11, who attended the Salomon event with Students for Hillary, said he thought every group was looking forward to today's final results "with cautious optimism." He said he had "promised not to go to sleep" until the California results are in. "Thankfully I don't have much class tomorrow," he added.
Chaiken said that it would be "hard to dissociate" the personal energy he's invested in the primaries from watching the results at the end of the day, and that he would try to concentrate on the fact that neither Clinton nor Obama will garner enough delegates to become the "de facto nominee."
Students from both Democratic political groups said they were looking forward to continuing to prepare for upcoming primaries, such as Rhode Island's on Mar. 4, with more phone calls and events. "I don't think it will be over tonight," said Craig Auster '08, a member of the Clinton group.
No matter the outcome, Chaiken said, his group will continue laboring to bring voters into their candidate's cause. "We'll wake up in the morning and keep going."
