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Student Power in the 1970 Elections: A Preliminary Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

William T. Murphy Jr.
William T. Murphy Jr.*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

The Cambodian invasion and the tragedies at Jackson and Kent State this spring led to explosions on college campuses all across the country. There was a great deal of talk of massive student intervention in the fall congressional elections and universities adopted various measures in response to the crisis. Some abandoned institutional neutrality by taking positions condemning the President's actions, others scheduled fall courses on elections and “practical politics”, while others opted for some variant of the two week “Princeton Plan” pre-election recess.

Most observers assumed that student political interest would remain high and that the student impact would be significant. By early summer university-based groups had been set up to lobby congressmen to support “end the war amendments”, to raise money for anti-war candidates, and to supply student volunteers to work actively for such candidates.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Winter 1971 , pp. 27 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1971

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References

1 Lobbying groups included the Continuing Presence in Washington and the Academic and Professional Alliance; most of the fundraising was done by the Universities Anti-War Fund; the Movement for a New Congress supplied campaign volunteers.

2 I would like to thank The Twentieth Century Fund for its valuable financial assistance.

3 We surveyed voters in Maryland's 4th (Paul Sarbanes) and 7th (Parren Mitchell) congressional districts; New Jersey's 4th (Frank Thompson) and 9th (Henry Helstoski); New York's 27th (John Dow); Massachusetts' 3rd (Robert Drinan); Wisconsin's 1st (Les Aspin); and Michigan's 6th (Charles Chamberlain). Doves were victorious in the first seven districts. In the Michigan district dove challenger John Cihon lost to Chamberlain.

4 In my case, as National Co-Director of the Movement for a New Congress.

5 A study done for Senator Phillip Hart of Michigan gave evidence that the physical appearance of the canvassers was unimportant. Two groups of young canvassers, one clean-cut in coat and tie, the others in “hippie” regalia, were put into two sets of similar precincts. A before and after survey was taken which showed that the percentage favoring Senator Hart had risen about 15% in both sets of precincts.

6 In each area the students canvassed only Democratic and Independent voters. For that reason the percentage of the vote totals are inflated in comparison with the totals for all voters.

7 See for instance, Stokes, Donald and Miller, Warren, “Party Government and the Saliency of Congress,” in Campbell, Angus et al. , Elections and the Political Order (New York: John Wiley, 1967), p. 205.Google Scholar

8 These incomplete statistics are used merely for Illustration. The complete voting and survey data will be subjected to more sophisticated quantitative analysis including scaling and multiple regression.

9 Although, of course, not all the peace candidates were Democrats, those in the eight districts we surveyed were. Peace Republicans Daniel Button, Ogden Reid, Don Riegle, Tom Railsback, and Paul McCloskey had substantial student support. In addition, James Buckley claimed to have over 4,000 students working for him. Whether most did more than clean-cuttedly pose for pictures in “Buckley for Senate” hats is doubftul.

10 We use participation here to mean electoral activities such as canvassing, literature distribution, poll watching, and not merely voting which, of course, was also very low.

11 Although volunteer efforts are also important in these races media plays a much greater part. In congressional races manpower is relatively much more important.

12 The only unions that turned out workers in any amount were the United Auto Workers and, in some areas, the Steelworkers.

13 Rossi, Peter H. and Cutright, Phillips, “The Impact of Party Organization in an Industrial Setting,” in Janowitz, Morris, Editor, Community Political Systems (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 81–116 Google Scholar; Katz, Daniel and Eldersveld, Samuel J., “The Impact of Local Party Activity upon the Electorate,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 25, 1961, pp. 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cutright, Phillips, “Measuring the Impact of Local Party Activity on the General Election Vote,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1963, pp. 372–386 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfinger, Raymond, “The Influence of Precinct Work on Voting Behavior,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 27, 1963, pp. 387–398 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kramer, Geraid, “The Effects of Precinct-Level Canvassing on Voting Behavior,” unpublished manuscript, Yale University, July 15, 1969 Google Scholar; Schneier, Edward and Murphy, William T. Jr., Vote Power (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970)Google Scholar, Chapter II.

14 Both non-student activists reported on in previous research and student non-participants who were surveyed as a control group.

15 These include indexes of Political Awareness, Political Efficacy, Citizen Duty, System Support, and University Support.