She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life.
So she should know who to vote for?
"It’s hard to decide on a lot of issues because everything is so new," said the 18-year-old, who is leaning toward President Bush because of his stances on restricting abortion and same-sex marriage.
America’s youth could be a major factor in selecting the next president – perhaps even the deciding factor, political analysts say.
"Young people have an extraordinary ability to make an enormous impact in any election because their numbers are so great," said Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh. Based on the trends he is seeing, he said the average turnout of young voters could easily double this election.
According to a Pew Research Center poll released late last month, 58 percent of young Americans surveyed said they were registered to vote, the highest percentage since 1992.
Candidates and their supporters are wooing new voters via MTV, traveling rock concerts and celebrity endorsements.
The largest nonpartisan youth vote efforts – the New Voters Project, Rock the Vote, Declare Yourself, WWE Smackdown Your Vote and Hip-Hop Summit Action Network – are spending nearly $40 million to get out the vote.
Others, such as Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, have launched their own get-out-the-vote campaigns, trying to market elections as they do music, portraying voting as the hot and sexy thing to do.
But the potential power of young voters is coupled with unpredictability.
The poll funded by the Pew Charitable Trust, a nonpartisan nonprofit based in Philadelphia, found that a quarter of voters 18 to 29 said they might change their minds before November, compared with only 8 percent of voters over 65.
Wichitan Will Sellers, who is taking a year off from college to work construction and model, plans to vote in his first presidential election Nov. 2. He’s concerned about support for education and about the war in Iraq.
"That’s a big issue. I’m 21. They may or may not impose the draft if they need more military help."
He doesn’t know yet which presidential candidate he’ll pick, or when he’ll pick one.
"It’ll probably come down to the last day," he said.
Many youths say they are unsure of where parties and candidates stand on various issues.
Some haven’t formed their own political opinions and plan to turn to the TV, Internet and publications for help.
"It’s hard when you’re young to know the world and know what it encompasses," said 20-year-old Lindsey DeTienne.
Nida doesn’t have a lot of experience or knowledge about taxes, Social Security and politics.
She said she’ll watch more TV and read up on issues to decide for sure.
She thinks politics is more interesting with a twist of pop culture. And she’s well aware that one of her favorite actors, heartthrob Ben Affleck, supports Sen. John Kerry.
"He’s cute," she said in between giggles.
Still, celebrities – even Affleck – won’t win her vote, she said.
"It mainly comes down to what I want to vote for rather than who they vote for."
Wichitan Colleen King, a 24-year-old full-time student and single mom, feels torn.
She’s done some research online and likes Kerry’s positions on education and issues for the elderly.
But she sides with Bush on abortion.
She is among the young voters who are deciding the candidate they were raised to support may not be the guy for them.
King was raised by a mom loyal to the Democratic Party, but she is unsure whether it represents her own views.
Wichita State University student Maria Tate, on the other hand, grew up in a Republican family.
Too young to vote in the last presidential election, she watched coverage on TV with her family, cheering for Bush.
This year, she said, she’ll vote for Kerry.
"I’ve met people from other walks of life and other places around the world and gotten a different perspective about our country, and I don’t agree with the way the war is being run," 21-year-old Tate said.
Not since the 1960s have young people been so caught up in the urgency to vote, said Thornburgh, who has been working for 20 years to encourage youth to vote.
Pop culture icons are helping, he agreed, with their endorsements, Web sites and T-shirts promoting voting.
"You’re seeing the culture change where voting and activism is a large part of being cool," he said.
DeTienne, who plans to vote for Bush, said she’s seen Kerry on MTV trying to make himself familiar to voters her age.
That’s a smart move, she said, but she hopes her peers don’t vote for him just because they saw him on their favorite network.
"That’s so wrong. The president has so much to do with the country and what’s going on."
Michael Campbell, a 29-year-old WSU student, agrees.
"It would be nice if people pay less attention to celebrities. Those guys don’t know what it’s like to be poor after making their millions or what it’s like to be a college student. ... I’m tired of people who don’t know what they’re talking about, telling me who to vote for."
Thornburgh said young people’s interest goes deeper than following a candidate.
Young adults have experienced the struggle of finding a job in a troubled economy, where the national unemployment rate among those younger than 24 is about twice that for older Americans.
They have friends fighting in Iraq, where half of those who have died are under 24.
They’re paying for school, graduating from college with an average debt of $18,900.
"Now they’re wanting to get involved," he said.
"This issue of getting young people to show up and vote has been an enormous problem for some time now," Thornburgh said.
Nationally, the trend for decades has been for about 15 percent of eligible young voters to turn up at polls, Thornburgh said.
That could easily double this election in Kansas, he said.
Robert Madrigal, a 19-year-old first-time voter, hopes so.
"Pick a side. I don’t care. Just vote," he said. "It’s our job to put the people in office to make the decisions."
YOUTH AND VOTING ONLINE
Dozens of Web sites are dedicated to getting voters in their teens and 20s to the polls. Among them:
www.kidsvotingusa.org: Kids Voting USA is a program that prepares students to be voters.
www.mtv.com: MTV’s Choose or Lose campaign is pushing for "20 million loud" – more than 20 million adults 19 to 30 to vote next month.
www.rockthevote.org: Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan nonprofit that encourages youth to register to vote and get involved in politics.
http://vote.wwe.com: World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. is pushing its Smackdown Your Vote to encourage young people to vote.
www.youthevote.net: The site for Freedom’s Answer, a youth-led, nonpartisan, nonprofit voter-turnout campaign.
www.youthvote.org: The Youth Vote coalition is a national nonpartisan group of organizations that promotes civic involvement among youth.
Contributing: Christina Woods of The Eagle
(c) 2004, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.). Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
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