Penn for McCain organizes

With Arizona Sen. John McCain continuing to pose a threat to Texas Gov. George W. Bush's road to the Republican presidential nomination, a group of Penn students met on Monday to bring some of the insurgent candidate's national popularity to Penn. Hoping to motivate Penn students to join McCain's "Straight Talk Express," Penn for McCain in 2000 had its introductory meeting Monday night. A group of 15 undergraduate and graduate students met in Stiteler Hall to discuss ways the group might spark interest among the larger student body. Created two weeks ago by College sophomore Bernadette Lee and Wharton junior Rajan Merchant, both Daily Pennsylvanian staff writers, the group is trying to assert its presence on campus quickly. "The other groups have all been up and going for a while, and so they might be a bit better organized right now, but we're hoping that with this meeting we can start to get our group going quickly," said College junior Christy Chung, who helped to organize the introductory meeting. Student organizations in support of both Democratic candidates, Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, have met over the past several weeks. This week is Voter Awareness Week, a five-day attempt to register Penn students to vote. The week's events are sponsored by the College Republicans, College Democrats, Bill Bradley for President, Penn for Bush, Penn for Gore and Penn for McCain. The meeting covered everything from on-campus logistics, organizing supporters to work at a table on Locust Walk and putting up flyers, to planning a trip taking Penn students up to New York City with Drexel University's McCain group next weekend, where McCain will be campaigning. The students are also organizing a meeting with Philadelphia Representatives for McCain sometime in the near future. While most of the plans were geared toward getting Penn students to register for the upcoming Pennsylvania Republican primary, Chung expressed a need to "attract Democrats and Independents too, as that is where so much of McCain's support is coming from so far." In order to vote in Pennsylvania's April 4 primary, voters must be registered by March 6. Despite the pressing deadline, students who attended the meeting expressed their belief that, with a little push, the McCain movement could gain momentum all across Penn's campus. "I had no motivation in politics at all, but when McCain had his kick-off, I saw him and heard what he was talking about, and I got motivated. I read up and got myself informed, and now I'm pushing McCain everywhere I go," said Ian Laurenzi, a third-year graduate student in Chemical Engineering.