After traveling to Boston in August to attend the College Democrats of America convention, the College Democrats are ready to boost their presence on campus.
Nicola Bunick and Colin Taylor, co-presidents of the College Democrats, and member Helen Adeosun represented Notre Dame at the convention, honing their campaign strategies and gaining inspiration from a wide array of distinguished speakers.
They joined 1,000 other collegiate delegates for four days, attending political training workshops led by several high-profile politicians, such as Al Sharpton, Senator Joseph Biden, and former Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
"The campaign training seminars showed us how to improve our club's strategies," Bunick said. "There is a lot of opportunity for us to restructure the club, make the College Democrats more prominent on campus and get more students involved."
Enthused by her fellow delegates, she said the best advice they received was from other clubs.
While the speakers and workshops were their primary reason for attending the event, the most exciting part was being part of the environment Bunick said.
"For me it was really amazing to see people so energized about the issues that I care about," she said.
Because the student convention was held concurrently with the Democratic National Convention, they were able to acquire tickets for the first night and saw President Carter, President Clinton and Vice President Gore speak.
"The speeches, especially Clinton's, were obviously very good and extremely well received by the delegates," Taylor said.
Taylor and Bunick felt the convention's warm reception for Kerry's speech was well-deserved.
"I thought it was as good as it could have been," Taylor said. "He showed a lot of emotion, which some people think is rare for him, and showed the audience how much passion he has for America."
Andrew Yi will be running the John Kerry for President campaign for the College Democrats this semester. In collaboration with the National Kerry Headquarters, he has set up three weekend voter registration campaigns in Ohio, where members of the club will run voter registration drives and phone banks.
Yi also plans to organize debates with the College Republicans and several informal colloquia with faculty members from the political science department.
