For five days, Manchester, N.H. felt like the center of the universe. Because open-seat races in both parties frame the presidential race in 2008, New Hampshire was the perfect political storm. Democratic and Republican upset victories in Iowa meant that the nomination process was contested. Because the primary is open and nearly half of registered voters are undeclared partisans, every candidate battles for every voter. Because it is a tiny state, easily crossed several times a week, if you stand on the corner in front of Merrimack Restaurant for a few hours, every candidate and national media personality will walk past you. I know this because I just got back from a Pace Center-sponsored trip to the Granite State with two-dozen Princeton students. As a professor, I expected to go to New Hampshire and teach the students important lessons about democracy. Instead, it was the students who taught me three important lessons.
First, young people are the engine of American democracy. The under-30 vote is never decisive in national elections. As a group, young voters are notoriously absent on Election Day. But voting is not the only form of democratic participation. New Hampshire was a perfect illustration of how the physical labor of young people drives local democratic processes. When we arrived in Manchester, it was 10 degrees and the snow banks were six feet high. Still, there were armies of high school and college students committing 20-hour days of unpaid labor to pass out campaign literature, knock on doors, hold up rally signs and offer rides to voters. After watching the commitment and effort of these students, I will never again be silent in a room full of adults who decry the apathy of the young folks. I have seen enough frostbite on 20-year-old fingers and toes this week to know better.
Second, it is important to hang out with people who disagree with you. Primary campaigns can be very balkanized. Every camp of supporters is deeply entrenched in the culture of their own campaign. These campaigns work to socialize volunteers quickly through rallies, chants and collective action. It is easy to grow to dislike the other candidates and their campaign workers. The students who traveled with Pace to New Hampshire, however, were committed to six different candidates and their campaigns. Some were Clinton workers, some were Obama followers, some were McCain supporters, and some supported Biden, Kucinich or Richardson. While each student was deeply committed to their candidate, we also had many chances to come together. We sat together for post-Iowa analysis, to watch the debates, to eat together and to drive one another around the state. We attended each other's rallies and hotly debated policy, strategy and character. Though everyone wore their own buttons, the students did an amazing job of reinforcing that we were all part of the Princeton family and that we share a common interest in working toward a better country. For me, these shared moments were the most powerful events of the week.
Finally, being in New Hampshire this week convinced me that our current electoral system effectively disenfranchises too many Americans. We had an amazing experience of political socialization this week. There are a million opportunities to see all of the candidates. They drop in on your morning coffee at the Dunkin' Donuts. You can spend the afternoon listening to them talk about domestic policy and then go over the local college to hear them debate foreign policy. They take pictures with your kids, send their staff to answer your questions and give you plenty of buttons to show your support. There are planes in the sky with campaign banners, signs on every street corner and dozens of free public events. The people of New Hampshire get to really know, see and experience the people who will represent them in government. The problem is that only a few citizens ever get this experience. If you are not in an early nominating state, you may have no say at all in who represents your party. If you live in a "safe" blue or red state, then you may get little campaign contact even in the general election. We should all have a chance to vet, question and support and interact with our presidential candidates in the way that the people of New Hampshire do.
It turns out that even a politics professor still had a lot to learn about democracy, and I am so grateful to the Princeton students who taught me these lessons. Melissa Harris-Lacewell is an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at the University. She can be reached at lacewell@princeton.edu.
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