Democratic Party supporters in the call center for Kamala Harris
Dozens of Kamala Harris supporters operated a call center in Delray Beach
Two things happen on August 20th: the Florida primary and the start of the new academic year at my institution.
At first glance, the two seem unrelated, but the synergy is actually quite clear. Three out of four years, we have an election season in Florida: the presidential election, the congressional election, and the local election – all important, potentially exciting, and great learning experiences for young people who are often encountering our political system for the first time. Our students intern with campaign teams to gain academic credit.
Learning about politics in practice is irreplaceable: in the trenches with or, more importantly, as Campaign staff, working with candidates, planning events, promoting your party and cause.
Young voters, like Votersare not nearly as important as young people as campaign workers. Florida politics is face-to-face. It’s a door-to-door campaign poster state. You’ll never win a local election here unless you’re willing to meet the voters.
Television advertising is notoriously ineffective here, no matter what advertisers and “campaign professionals” tell you. Florida voters are skeptical, distrustful types, and they want to know exactly who is asking for their vote. The standard-bearers are this army of college students who take to the streets, follow a ballot, scratch dates, and talk to people on their porches.
Many other people do this too. But it is the students who seem to bear the lion’s share of the burden.
There’s a “trickle-down” theory in politics that says when the national and congressional races heat up, the heat also fires up the local base. In 2024, Florida looked pretty hopeless. Biden was trailing by double digits here. Neither party was putting money into the state. The battleground was developing 2,000 miles to the north.
That’s over now. Both sides are heated up, and the election results are just a stone’s throw apart – even in Florida, if a new USA Today/Suffolk/WSVN-TV poll is correct.
There’s a new passion, a new excitement. On both sides of the aisle. That means the people who are coming through the door and into the classroom for the first time — as well as our campaign veterans — are ready to hit the streets to compete in the general election.
The political divide among young activists is as sharp as it is among their elders, but one big and important difference is the mood of political competition. There is much less anger, bitterness and ugliness among students who share a classroom.
If you give them the freedom to actually exchange ideas and explain why they support this or that candidate or this or that party, the competition will still exist, but it will be based on mutual respect, if not always on complete understanding.
Most college students are lumped into random groups—they take many of the same courses—and are in constant academic and social contact that transcends their political differences. While they may recite memes online, it’s far harder to reduce your classmate, roommate (or significant other) to the role of an intolerant cardboard cartoon.
Tim, who is vice president? Walz brings a rural, everyman voice to the Harris campaign | R. Bruce Anderson
We hope they learn two things from this. They learn solid skills – how to prepare campaign books, how to listen and answer questions about the candidates, and how to do basic campaign office work.
But there’s a not-so-secret agenda behind it too. They learn that people can have legitimate reasons for supporting a different candidate or party; that this doesn’t make them bad people; and that there’s more than one real and reasonable way of looking at the political world (and that that way of looking at things may be diametrically opposed to your own).
All in all, I would choose the second item on the agenda over “How to charge an electric stapler” any day.
R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government and Civics and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and a political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF radio in Lakeland.
