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On Wednesday morning, Barbara Barras pinned two pro-John Kerry
buttons on the left shoulder of her loose-fit green T-shirt and
set off for art classes and to check on her latest installation ó
rows of crosses scripted carefully in chalk along the sidewalks of
the Nicholls State University quadrangle by a group of volunteers
the afternoon before.
The group was about 400 crosses shy of 1,014, Barras said, when it
ran out of chalk ó and space. The crosses are designed to
represent the soldiers killed in Iraq.
“Regardless of your party,” the cement declares where the
sidewalk, and war memorial, begins, “this is the ultimate cost of
war. On Nov. 2, do your duty and vote.”
Barras, whose long blond hair drapes casually around her face and
below her shoulders, is “old enough to remember Vietnam, huge
budget deficits and the recession,” she said.
Her father served four tours in that war, she said, and one of her
two sons was sent with the Marines to Afghanistan following Sept.
11, 2001. The other will soon deploy to Iraq.
Her sons and others like them, along with what she believes has
been a systematic stripping away by the present administration of
the rights of its citizens, are the main reasons she is so
passionate about this election ó and why she hopes to spur more
students, whom she believes are drastically affected by the races’
outcomes, to the polls this Tuesday.
Barras is the president of the College Democrats, a club she
formed about a month ago and that has attracted about 38 members
so far.
The group signed up 507 students to vote in one week, she said,
most of them Democrats who registered for the first time.
And the club will sponsor a bring-your-friend-to-vote effort
Tuesday to help students without transportation make it to vote.
Inside the student union, Barras has pinned on the wall a poster
with the names of the dead represented by the crosses outside. The
names surround a photo of Bush’s face, which, upon closer look, is
actually a mosaic of tiny photos of the faces of those killed in
action.
As she approaches the recently hung poster, however, she realizes
someone has pasted a sign that reads “support our troops” over the
picture of the president.
“They don’t care that that’s the pictures of these people,” she
said, peeling off the note.
Her actions, she said, do not mean a “turning away from our
soldiers … God forbid we ever did to our soldiers,” what was done
to veterans of Vietnam, she said. “It’s not their fault.”
But supporting your troops doesn’t mean you have to support your
commander in chief, she said.
“You don’t go into a war without a plan for how to exit.”
These types of challenges are nothing new on the campus, Barras
said. She has replaced flyers announcing a College
Democrats-sponsored showing of Michael Moore’s anti-Bush film
“Fahrenheit 9/11” in the student theatre at least five times, she
said. As she posted new flyers recently, she said she was
challenged by a faculty member, unaware that Barras was a student.
Stepping back outside in front of the student union, a couple of
downward-facing thumbs are pointed her way. “It’s a lost cause,”
one guy shouts.
Barras’ counterpart, Adam Rouillier, a 21-year-old student taking
pre-requisites for medical school, presides over the recently
resuscitated College Republicans club at Nicholls. He was not on
campus Wednesday, but reached by phone, he said his organization
is 25 members strong and growing.
Rouillier admits his group has been slightly less visible than the
Democratic organization on campus, partly because it is still
somewhat disorganized and possibly because polls show Bush has a
hefty lead in the state.
Club members have been making appearances at Thursday night
football games, Rouillier said, promoting the president and other
Republican candidates, and for the remaining days until the
election, will conduct other activities around town.
The group will sponsor a showing of the film “Farenhype 9/11,”
intended to counter the College Democrats’ effort, and on Tuesday,
Rouillier said, the group will bring “people we know will vote for
our candidates” to the polls.
Rouillier has also built a Web site for the club:
www.nicholls.edu/crnsu.
One of the biggest concerns of Rouillier and his fellow
Republicans, is the war in Iraq.
“We feel that Kerry is just going to quit the war,” he said. “We
started something and need to finish it.”
Other issues driving young Republicans’ interests this election
season, he said, relate to health care and the environment, though
“most people think Republicans aren’t environmentally aware,” he
said.
“Republicans,” Rouillier’s Web site says, “believe in preserving
the environment just as much as anyone else. Methods that we
support for preserving the environment include recycling,
alternative fuels, coastal restoration and reforestation. That is
why CRNSU are taking means to help preserve the environment. Just
remember, we cannot do it alone, we need your help.”
An outside pro-Kerry group rolled across Nicholls’ campus early
Wednesday, boats in tow, taking its message “Vote or Float” to the
state’s coastal residents -- and students. Organizers charge that
the president has not funded coastal restoration projects in the
state, yet has directed $100 million to Iraq to restore wetlands
there. |
