I may not be as popular or as stylish (I’ll leave that one up for debate) as P. Diddy, but if there’s one message I want to get across to the readership this issue it’s the importance of voting. Now, I’ve only been old enough to vote for two years. That automatically disqualifies me as this “experienced and aged voter,” as some of our parents and professors are, and I haven’t been living long enough to observe voting trends or even multiple election turnovers.But at the same time, 20-years-old is not that young, either. So as the editor of this publication, as a young adult but more importantly as your peer, I want to recall for you the first election I am old enough to actively remember: I was about six-years-old, when Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Ross Perot were battling for the presidency. While most of the other students in my class were concerned about Power Rangers, I took a fondness for politics.

I understood the concepts of political parties, and watched the Republican and (some of) the Democratic National Conventions with my father. I proudly wore a “Go Perot!” sticker on my lunchbox and backpack. And I had no shame in trying to talk with my fellow six-year-old neighbor about why her parents shouldn’t vote for Bush.

An intense enthusiasm surrounded the 1992 presidential election, in my six-year-old mind and the Sroka household. As I grew older, that interest in politics cultivated.

But elections, while exciting to me, have become very routine. Presidents come in every four years, and in between there are smaller elections to keep my political taste buds active. I’ll by no means ever make it to apathetic, but I almost miss in myself the excitement that surrounded seeing a presidential candidate speak on television or give an interview in the local newspaper. The decline in enthusiasm around elections is evident in our age group. Maybe people don’t care enough to vote and keep up with the news. Maybe they don’t like the candidates (I can say that as I’ve gotten older, I have lost the admiration I once had for candidates). Or maybe they are just lazy.

But we have to realize that as Americans and as the future generation of leaders (isn’t that line old? But it’s true…), that we can’t become complacent about the way our country is run. If we do not hold fast to our liberties, they will quickly be devalued and taken away.

So if there’s one thing you do before picking up our next issue, take a stroll over to the Alumni Memorial Union or your designated polling place (www.mu.edu/vote) and cast a ballot. If not for you, do it for the six-year-olds somewhere out there who still get excited about elections.

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