Election Voices: a young voter
John Biewen, 8/2/96

During this year's election campaign, we're bringing you the voices of Minnesota voters -- young and old; urban, rural and suburban. The idea is to hear what Minnesotans are thinking about -- what they'd like to hear the candidates discussing, whether those issues are making headlines. Minnesota Public Radio's John Biewen spoke with a Minneapolis college student who will vote for the first time this November.

((Sfx...39.38, 41.15 ...scraping, talking))

19-year-old Eric Carpenter and his friend Tim have spent much of their summer on scaffolding... scraping and painting Tim's family's house in the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis.

((35.15 Sfx...scraping... Eric: "Are we really gonna put a stepladder on that plank?"))

Carpenter says he likes house-painting better than the cutlery-sales job that he quit earlier in the summer. The flexible hours, the chance to be outside, the time to talk with his friend. Carpenter admits just a fraction of that talk is about politics. But he thinks the criticism of Generation Xers, that they're 'clueless' and bored by politics... is unfair.

((18.15 "I think any up-and-coming generation is not gonna be really involved with politics and they're gonna be preoccupied with other things in their life because it's such a pivotal time. School, you know... just understanding themselves and things like that. / But I think that a lot of my friends and other people of my generation are concerned about politics, but it's just not on the forefront.")) ((30.42 room tone...))

Carpenter says he, for one, is excited to be casting his first votes this year. He's a biochemistry major at Colorado College, and a 400-meter runner on the track team there. Sitting at the kitchen table of his family's house in the southwestern corner of Minneapolis, Carpenter discusses the issues he cares about most. For starters, the environment...and in particular, the dispute over the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Carpenter's opposed to more motorized boats in the BWCA.

((5.38 "And I also don't think the locals should have more of a say than the rest of the country. I mean, I go up there every year. I think we all have the same access to those forests and those national lands, we should all have similar say in it."))

Carpenter says he wishes U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone would take a stand on the BWCA, but he supports Wellstone's call for a mediated settlement. Carpenter, who calls himself a liberal, plans to vote for Wellstone; he says he agrees with everything Wellstone has done, except the Democratic Senator's vote to ban gay marriage.

Another key issue for Carpenter is affirmative action. He's biracial -- his late mother was black, his father is white -- so he's sensitive to the perception that people of color get special treatment.

((13.15 "I haven't had somebody come up to me and say, 'you're just here because of affirmative action,' and things like that./ But I see it, and I read about it all the time."))

Carpenter says some forms of affirmative action should be eliminated. But he watches political candidates to see if they tell the truth about affirmation action...or, in his view, misrepresent the programs for political gain.

((8.30 "There are government setasides, which I don't agree with. But as far as quotas go, like in schools and things like that, they really don't exist. And there's a big hatred of that and a lot of candidates are using that, like Buchanan, you know, 'they're stealing our jobs.' And that's, I feel, a code word, for not just immigrants but also our own minorities./ These code words need to be seen for what they are."))

Carpenter was undecided about the Presidential candidates until recently. He never considered voting Republican, but he was intrigued by the Reform party candidates -- in part, he says, because they did less mudslinging than the two major parties.

((21.45 "I was looking a little bit at Lamm and Perot, but I don't think they're -- I mean, Perot is a businessman, and a lot of times I think he'd probably be good at handling the money. But I think a nation leader doesn't need to just be good with money, he needs to be good with people and understand how the country works."))

Despite what he calls President Clinton's 'shuffling around' on the issues, Carpenter says he'll vote for Clinton. Sounding very much like the 19-year-old that he is, Eric Carpenter says he just wants people to come together and make the world a better place. He believes, of the major candidates for President, Bill Clinton will do the most to make that happen. soc.