Stanford University - Quad Yearbook (Palo Alto, CA)

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John Freed, editor Newell LaVoy, business manager Dave Smith, managing editor Bonny Rodden, executive editor Anne-Marie Lamarche, advertising Ann Amioka Dave Ansley Chris Baker Paul Bauman Karen Caesar Stephen Crolius Rosario Delatorre Dan Fiduccia manager Mark Funk Randy Keith Laura Kennedy Alexander Left Jill Lieber Kathryn Ma Bob Maguire Lori Matsukawa Martha McGettigan Gail McNicholas Karen O'Leary Charlie Parker Leita Patton Perry Simon Jack Vaughn Jacob Young 17

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THE DALY vol. 170 16

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ELECTION 76 A President Maybe Americans were too burned out by all the bicentennial fireworks and commercial gimcracks to reaffirm our political system by voting with enthusiasm in the elections of our country's 200th year. It wasn't that no one really cares, but just that no one could decide. In rooms and lounges throughout the campus, students trying to make up their minds tuned into the Debates. Those who paused to listen on any of those three evenings listened hoping that the two candidates, face to face, might reveal something, anything, about themselves that could command a vote. Yet few viewers actually sat out the whole hour, if they bothered to sit at all. Interest soon deteriorated into scepticism, as it tends to do around here. Derisive comments by scat- tered observers soon proved to be the only noteworthy ones, however. Except perhaps when important foreign policy secrets slipped out, as on the night the incumbent candidate assured the nation that Eastern Europe was free from Communist domination. Whether they stopped to catch Foot-in-Mouth Ford doing it again or to be dazzled by The Smile Carter, debate baiting was the most active involvement to be seen anywhere on campus before the elections. Even the number who watched the returns at Tresidder or came to down beer and champagne at the new American Studies House was relatively small. Probably the turnout would have been greater if election night didn't so inconveniently fall right in the middle of midterms. But even those attuned in any way to the democratic ritual seemed somehow detached. If any had much commitment invested in the outcome, not many showed it. Like the rest of America, they seemed tired of Ford's sleepy leadership. Stirred by Carter's energy, they seemed inclined to get up and follow him. Yet no one was at any one point certain of where he was going, or if his way was really the way they wanted to go. Perhaps Carter's campaign pledges to aggressively alleviate unemployment struck a responsive chord among today's job hungry students. Or maybe many here could readily identify with someone who admitted to lusting in his heart. For whatever reasons, Carter carried two thirds of university area votes, although they weren't enough to dissuade a more conservatively minded California from donating its bloc of electoral votes to the only president who had never before received either electoral or popular votes in taking the office. In the end, with 51 percent of the popular vote and 297 electoral votes going to the peanut farmer who was a nuclear engineer and former Georgia governor, just enough Americans had taken the chance and opted for a change in leadership. As state by state the votes added up for Jimmy Carter, never had it seemed so apparent that each person's vote counted. Yet never had each voter seemed less convinced about his or her choice. 18