At the trendy Bethesda brewpub, it's happy hour. Music is blaring, and young office workers are kicking back with pints of ale. But something strange is going on:
Instead of pickup lines, they're talking politics -- handicapping the Maryland election.
Jostling elbows in the back booths, these twentysomethings are comparing their favorite politicos like bands at the Lilith Fair. They've even paid money for this opportunity, $25 apiece for the inaugural fund-raiser of Maryland Ahead, a new political committee trying to get Democrats their age into office.
"I can't wait to see how Montgomery County reacts to a younger candidate. There's a new guy running against an incumbent, I hear, and he's only 22," Jodi Finkelstein, 28, announces to the crowd at Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery.
No question about it, the young professionals and college students readily agree, they're a minority. They don't just watch C-SPAN, they follow local ballot questions. They don't just know their congressmen, they can name their state delegates.
Most of their generation can barely be bothered to vote. Not even a third of under-25 voters participated in the last presidential election, and surveys show far fewer are interested in state or local politics.
Hardly any local politicians even look like them. In Maryland, only three of the 188 members of the General Assembly are younger than 30 -- all Republicans. Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening is in his fifties, and his Republican challengers are older. The leading contender for state comptroller is William Donald Schaefer, a 76-year-old former governor.
None of the gubernatorial candidates has made a special effort to reach out to Generation X voters in this fall's elections. But at least a few young Marylanders care deeply about the outcome.
While they may share some of their generation's frustrations with mainstream politics, they see the opportunity to bring about social change. They make the connection between their concern about recycling or health insurance and the choice of a governor.
Several dozen college students, mostly self-confessed "political junkies," are giving up their summer vacations to work for little or no pay on the gubernatorial campaigns. Their motivations are as diverse as they are:
A senior at Salisbury State has political ambitions of his own. A business graduate of the University of Maryland wants to enhance her resume. A junior at North Carolina's Davidson College hopes to see a Republican elected governor in his home state of Maryland.
David Dashefsky, a freckled, earnest 1997 Yale graduate, is going a step further. He's the 22-year-old candidate for delegate in Montgomery County.
"I've become convinced that the whole HMO system isn't working, that women, seniors and even bachelors from Yale aren't getting good health care," Dashefsky says. He surprised himself by deciding "the simplest way to address the issue was to run, win or lose."
"I'm impressed," says Becky Rosenthal, 21, an old friend who bumps into him glad-handing at the microbrewery.
"Our age group is so non-political that it's good at least some of us are starting to be involved."
Cheerfully 'clueless'
Ever since the 1960 presidential election, voter turnout across the country has steadily eroded. But while the public in general is increasingly indifferent and mistrustful of government, surveys show the Generation X electorate is especially turned off.
"What's special about Gen Xers," says Kay Schlozman, a political scientist at Boston College who studies voting patterns, "is that they're entering the electorate at even lower levels than any of their predecessors."
Beyond presidential elections, she notes, the disinterest only widens. Property taxes matter less if you don't own a home. Public schools aren't as important if you don't have children.
Jason Howell is typical of twentysomethings who admit they're barely aware of Maryland's Sept. 15 primary, let alone the November general election.
At a Towson sporting goods store where he is assistant manager, Howell cheerfully describes himself as "clueless." Elections used to mean "a day off from school," but now he ignores them.
"To me, no matter who gets into office, the same things happen anyway," he says.
Selling camping gear beside Howell is David Leopold, 18. He has some opinions about the governor's race, but expects to sit out his first election. By fall, he'll be in college in Boston. And besides, he says, "I'm really more interested in the way people line up nationally."
His situation is common among college students. Many don't bother to change their registration, or to get absentee ballots. After graduation, they often lead such transient lives that they don't identify with state concerns.
"You know what I'm interested in? Not taxes." says Mike Leh, 24, a jazz musician from California who lives in Baltimore. "I'd like to see someone come up with a concrete plan to get more people to move back into Baltimore."
Still, if he heard such a proposal, Leh probably wouldn't register to vote in Maryland. He's packing his drums to move to Prague.
But some young Marylanders are getting up at daybreak, living off pizza and missing summer parties -- all to do often-thankless chores on campaigns.
"From the outside, I never thought it would be this much work," admits Camille Abrahams, a University of Maryland senior who coordinates volunteer activities for the Glendening camp.
"My friends are like, 'Camille, you're 20 years old, when are we ever going to see you?' " she says.
"But a lot of them don't know what they want to do for the rest of their life, and I'm working in the direction I want to be going."
Andy Rittler does the same job in the "volunteer pit" at Republican Ellen R. Sauerbrey's headquarters. Four years ago, he merely voted for Sauerbrey; he was "too busy having a good time" as a high school graduate to do more.
Now, the senior at Salisbury State puts in long hours on her campaign. He wants to elect a more conservative governor, but also hopes the experience will help him run for office someday.
"I remember in middle school, the teacher made us all say what we wanted to do when we grew up. I said 'a politician,' and her eyes just rolled back," Rittler recalls.
"I still have that ambition," he says, "and right now, I'm learning how campaigns work. It's good to see things at a grass-roots level."
The young campaigners admire their candidates, believe in them, even recount with some awe the moments they get close enough to exchange views. But few appear to identify with them personally.
Glendening is 56, and his son is in college. His chief GOP rival, Sauerbrey, is 60, and the second Republican, Charles I. Ecker, is 69 and a grandfather. Democrat Eileen M. Rehrmann, who was the youngest of the major candidates at 53, has quit the race. Still in the primary are two long shots, one 55, the other 47.
It's difficult to imagine their college volunteers engaged in the kind of scene that Sara Davidson recounts in "Loose Change," her biography of the 1960s. At the University of California at Berkeley, she and her sorority friends "looked at pictures in Life -- magazine of Kennedy wading in the surf. We were in love with the President. How did he kiss?"
Whether they're handing out stickers for a Democrat or Republican, the campaigners tend to be serious, thoughtful, often as interested in national party politics as their candidate.
In College Park, Glendening's supporters talk of his efforts to increase education funding and to offer more college scholarships. Yet they're equally concerned about the environment and race relations in the country.
In Towson, Sauerbrey's volunteers mention her promises to lower taxes and restore discipline in the schools. Yet they also are anticipating a possible Republican upset in a Democratic state.
"For me, it's to some degree philosophical. I believe in the concept of a more limited government," says Jesse Smallwood, 20, a junior at Davidson College.
But it's not theory alone. "She came so close last time, I knew it would be exciting," he says, "and every minute of it has been."
Campaigns always draw college volunteers because of their fast-paced drama. But today's group also has career goals in mind.
Brandi Dickman, a 22-year-old University of Maryland graduate working for Glendening, is one. Dickman has fallen in love with the "hustle and bustle" of campaigning, and she hopes to make her way across the country working for other candidates. She recalls Glendening's victory party four years ago.
"You could just feel the excitement in the room," she says. Laughing, she quickly adds: "I must have felt I had like a personal bond with him because I was there with, oh, 600 other people."
Her deprecating joke about her enthusiasm is a reminder that the young campaigners share some of their generation's jaded attitude toward politics.
Idealistic and cynical
Their history lessons, after all, were of a fallen president, Richard Nixon. Their attention is now riveted on another president, Bill Clinton, and his troubles with a former intern their age.
They're at once idealistic, but also curiously cynical.
"I used to think in order to be a successful politician, you have to sell something all the time," says Jill Homan, Ecker's 23-year-old communications director. "So I found it really refreshing the way [Ecker] operates, how it's not a matter of saying yes, agreeing with people just to get elected."
Yet asked if she envisions a career on the campaign circuit, Homan sighs: "No. A lot of it is disheartening. It's so hard to express yourself to people who aren't willing to listen."
Glendening campaigner Abrahams dreams of a national leadership role, maybe as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, maybe running for office. But she, too, gets discouraged sometimes.
Given the intense media scrutiny nowadays and the chance of getting labeled as a left- or right-winger, she says, "You wonder if you even want to go there."
On a sticky, 95-degree morning in Oxon Hill, while handing out blue-and-white Glendening stickers, she gets some reassurance.
In the corner of an old gym, beneath a frayed basketball net, financial planner Reggie Bagley, 27, stops to chat. "It's good to see someone as young as you out in politics," he tells her. "Keep it up."
Pub Date: 8/13/98