Dean Tries to Get Out the College Vote

Howard Dean will kick off his Raise the Roots tour tonight in Washington, D.C., aimed at attracting college-aged voters to the polls when he contends for the U.S. presidency.

Dean, who spoke with The Spectrum and other college publications Thursday, outlined several plans for helping the wallets of college students. For instance, Dean said he favors a full funding for the Americorps program, which recently suffered heavy cuts.

"I'm really interested in giving a service option to kids, particularly when they're in high school, and that's going to help them pay for their college education," Dean said.

Dean also said if elected president, he would advocate Pell Grant increases, which affect student loans.

The four-day, seven-city Raise the Roots campaign is part of Dean's effort to directly address college students that Dean's staff believes are generally interested in what is going on in the world, but choose not to vote or feel alienated from the political process.

"Eighty-six percent of our generation performs community service, but in the 2000 election, only 36 percent voted," said Michael Whitney, a 19-year-old Dean staffer and Buffalo native. "Young people do want to achieve change, but they don't see government as an effective means to do so."

Whitney is in charge of Dean's "Generation Dean" campaign, which is specifically targeted at student voters and now has 12,674 members from 709 different schools. He said Dean's willingness to use college students as organizers, rather than for "grunt work," is what attracted him to the campaign.

Dean has made a name for himself with strident opposition to the war with Iraq, an issue he also discussed Thursday.

"I can't imagine how (President George W. Bush) managed to convince Congress to vote for that resolution to send everybody to Iraq," Dean said. "That's clearly a foreign policy blunder, which we made in our generation by sending everybody to Vietnam with similar bad information from the president of the United States."

"I want a foreign policy that's based on cooperation and not confrontation," Dean added.

When asked what the biggest environmental problem facing the country is and how he would deal with it, Dean responded with harsh criticism of Bush - something that has helped to define his campaign thus far.

"The biggest environmental problem in this country is President Bush, and you know how I'm going about addressing that problem," Dean said. "They have the worst environmental record since the League of Conservation Voters has been keeping records.

Dean said although he is vocal in his criticism of Bush, he believes his policy plans also make him an attractive candidate.

"We do have lot of fun at the president's expense, because he's so far out there, but you've got to really have a plan for how you're going to govern America," Dean said.