MTV generation in search of a hero

Column originally published Nov. 13, 2007

For better or worse, my alma mater typically doesn't garner national attention.
When you go to a tiny school like Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you're generally satisfied with the anonymity. Sure, I'm proud to be a Kohawk (third generation at that), but usually I operate under the "no news is good news" philosophy. It means there's no cheating scandals, no philandering professors, no violent outbursts.

The exception to the rule, however, was Coe's cameo appearance on MTV Oct. 29 as the site for an MTV/MySpace.com candidate forum with Sen. Barack Obama. Based on being in Iowa and, according to at least one blogger, having "better angles" than archrival Cornell in Mount Vernon, Coe's Dows Theater was chosen to play host to Obama, MTV's journalists and some 250 young people lucky in enough to attend.

That's about 225 more young people than were allowed to enter the same theater in January 2000 when Vice President Al Gore spoke to a crowd of mainly, well É I'm not really sure. I was editor of the Coe Cosmos at the time and even I didn't find out about Gore's appearance until I walked out of my dorm that morning and saw Secret Service snipers on campus roofs.

Yet I wasn't really upset. I knew voters would be choosing between Gore and George Bush, which I considered the ultimate "lesser of two evils" conundrum. I just didn't care about presidential politics.

Since that time, I have met or interviewed candidates for governor, Congress and the White House and been thoroughly underwhelmed by almost all of them. These opportunities often did more to convince me my vote is irrelevant than they did to ignite some political passion in my soul.

Yet, as I watched Obama speak to current Coe students, I sensed a new attitude among the young people.

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