Students hold rally for Clinton on Green

With just over six weeks to the presidential election, college students calling themselves Vote for a Change organized hundreds of rallies at campuses across the country, enlisting the aid of local politicians and faculty, and, at campuses that could get it, Bill Clinton himself via satellite hookup from the University of New Mexico. At the University, the group staged an afternoon rally complete with local politicians, faculty, voter registration forms, and a booing minority of Bush supporters. Vote for a Change co-chairs and College seniors Marsha Zabusky and David Boyer stressed that although they were definitely a partisan group, their main goal was to ignite political awareness on a campus where voting interest has been notoriously low. "I would say that definitely everybody on this campus should be voting, regardless of who they're going to be voting for," Boyer said. But Boyer said the event was a kickoff of a national drive to increase support for Democrats at colleges across the country, and that with little over one and a half months from election day, it was time to "plant the seed of choice" in the mind of students at the University and nationally. The rally began with University alumna and 27th Ward Democratic leader Cheryl George-Macalpine, stressing the importance of political unity. "The people are telling me this country is not about us and them people," George-Macalpine said. "This country is not about -isms, this country is about community and humanity and decency. And those are our values." George-Macalpine ridiculed the Bush administration for the rising cost of education, for the decline in real wages the economy and a nation of cultural and social antagonisms. Challenging the Bush family values attack on the Democrats, George-Macalpine said Democratic values were those of "community, humanity, and decency, values that transcended the values of the family." She urged students to participate in the electoral process to allow the country to be the democracy "its founders intended." Speaking next and perhaps in place of the missing Pennsylvania Congressman Lucien Blackwell (D-Pa.) who was scheduled to appear, City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, spoke of the Democratics historic commitment to social welfare reform. Blackwell reiterated George-Macalpine's request that all eligible voters vote in this election in order to make the executive office representative of "We the people" and not the "rich and super rich" The majority of the ralliers said they leaned towards the Clinton ticket, and several mentioned thier desire and responsibility to bring about change in America today as the motive for their involvement in Friday's rally. "I'm here to show my support for the Clinton campaign because I think we need important changes in many facets of the country." said Wharton freshman Andrew Lazerow. However, not all of the ralliers were there to support the Democrats. Around thirty protestors carrying "Bush/Quayle" signs attended the rally, heckling Associate Professor of Communications Carolyn Marvin, who also addressed the rally, and correcting George-Macalpine when she incorrectly identified November 6 as election day. Election day is November 3. Vote for a Change members, although slightly dissapointed by Congressman Blackwell's absence, were exuberant with the large turnout and quality of speakers. "This is excellent," said Zabusky. "I think that everyone on campus should have been here but its a great start."

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