ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 30, 1996 TAG: 9610010102
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN ADAMS STAFF WRITER
They want good education for children. They want affordable health care for the elderly. They want the environment preserved for future generations.
These are the wishes of the newest crop of voters, in their late teens and early 20s, who will be choosing a president for the first time.
``I'm not really into politics,'' many of them say apologetically, yet they worry about their grandparents, their neighborhoods, the air their kids will breathe.
Some don't know yet how they will vote. But whether they are left-wing, right-wing, or somewhere in between, stereotypes do not necessarily apply.
Jul Basham, a 20-year-old Roanoker who works at Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea in downtown Roanoke, wears her long blond hair in skinny braids and drapes ropes of beads around her neck. She also sports a silver ring in her nose. A Mormon, she was raised in a Republican household and is studying at Virginia Western Community College until she leaves for Brigham Young University in the spring.
``I think there definitely needs to be more family values,'' Basham says. ``Kids today are growing up without their parents.''
Leslie Woodmansee, 20, from Cloverdale, calls herself ``a hard-core Republican,'' yet she says one of her best experiences has been working with Habitat for Humanity, and she is looking into the Peace Corps. She also believes in Head Start for children and supports equal rights for gays and lesbians. ``My parents give me a hard time about that,'' she says. She is a student at Hollins College.
Perhaps more than any other generation, their opinions are mixed, often within themselves, and they like to think independently. They want to be careful and fair. They are the youngest Generation Xers and take issue with being labeled apathetic.
They all agree that voting definitely matters.
A better world for kids
Tamita Saunders, 20, worries about the social environment of many of the kids she knows. Education, she says, can make all the difference. ``Teachers should be the highest paid people in the country,'' she says. Her teachers at Roanoke's William Fleming High School had a tremendous influence on her own life, as did schoolteacher Debra Jones, the mother of Saunders' best friend, Sharnika.
``I used to think, `I can't do it,''' she says. ``But they made me see that I could.''
Saunders, who works full time in customer service at the YWCA, hopes to attend ECPI next year. Her goal is to work with disabled children and computers.
Sharnika Jones, also 20, says, ``I feel strongly about education, since my mother is a schoolteacher.'' She also works full time at the YWCA, in child care, and plans to earn a license in child care from Virginia Western.
If she could do one thing for kids, Jones says, ``I would outlaw all guns. Period.''
Although they have not yet decided how they will vote, both say they will vote in favor of children.
Patrick Henry High School graduate Ryan Baxter, 19, is a firm believer in programs such as Head Start, in which his youngest brother participated last year. Baxter is convinced it is the reason his brother is crazy about school.
``I always hated school, but I didn't have programs like that,'' he says. He adds that he did have great government and history teachers at Patrick Henry.
Such programs, he says, help working parents like his mother, a single mom who works hard to make ends meet and cannot afford to pay for day care. Baxter works full time at Mill Mountain Coffee and plans to attend Virginia Western in the spring, and Virginia Tech next fall.
Pete Foster, 21, is a Republican from Chesterfield County at Roanoke College. He agrees that such programs help in the long run. But, he adds, ``The best-case scenario is if the programs are run and funded by communities, started by churches, parents and grandparents,'' and he believes that communities would do so.
Woodmansee does too. ``Republicans believe in restored power to the community,'' she says. She supports Head Start, but believes that day care and other programs should be locally created and paid for.
On the other hand, New Yorker Vicky Lopez, 18, has seen her community do just the opposite. The Hollins freshman says that many summer school and after-school programs have disappeared in New York. She worries that the loss will hinder young people's ability to function in society. ``If kids don't have a program to go to, they end up out on the street.''
Shawn Hinds, 18, is a Roanoke College Democrat from Chelmsford, Mass. He says he is wary of the Dole plan to slash the Education Department, and is fearful of the fallout.
A protected environment
``It just makes you sick when everybody knows the world is going down the drain,'' says Baxter of the environment. But he believes that government can make a difference by imposing regulations to stop industrial polluters. He will vote Democratic, and hopes to see Al Gore become president someday.
Basham also favors stricter environmental regulations. Her voice is soft until she slaps the table and says, ``We're killing our planet!''
Nearly every other young voter in the group, regardless of persuasion, said the environment should be a priority.
Health care, benefits for the elderly
Ashley Ronald, 21, is a Hollins student from Houston who says that, more than anything, she would like to see more benefits for the elderly. ``I have a 90-year-old grandmother who just moved in with us,'' she says. ``What will she do about health care? Everything is so expensive.'' At this point, Ronald is undecided how she will vote, but says her Republican parents have had a strong impact on her.
Foster says that he wishes the country could provide medical benefits for everyone, but it cannot. He proposes cutting the rate of increase while preserving the benefits themselves.
Heather Gavin, 20, a Roanoke College Democrat from Long Island, N.Y., thinks everything possible should be done for the elderly. ``It's appalling when you hear of grandparents eating cat food because they're so poor,'' she says.
A look at welfare
None of these young voters believes that welfare should be eliminated, but many of them want reform.
Basham wants it to be fair, and says there should be a way to judge who's using it legitimately and who isn't. Foster says that women on welfare should not receive extra benefits for having more children.
Even so, it should be made clear just how much money is at issue, says Lopez. She wants to see a breakdown of the national budget to see what goes where. After all, she adds, at 1 percent welfare is only a fraction of the budget.
Saunders and Sharnika Jones dream of opening a 24-hour day-care center for the children of parents who want to work and get off welfare. Although she hopes for the day when nobody will need welfare, Saunders says, ``I think there should always be money to help people who need it to get ahead and strive to be their best.''
Abortion rights
On the abortion issue, this group is largely in favor of abortion rights. They don't believe in abortion as birth control, but most believe the decision is each woman's.
``I'm not for abortions. But if a younger child gets pregnant and can't take care of a child, then it's different,'' says Sharnika Jones. ``But I'm not for it.''
Although mostly conservative, Ashley Ronald says, ``Every woman has the right to do what she wants to do with her body.'' And Leslie Woodmansee says she is a pro-choice Republican.
Pete Foster's is the dissenting voice. ``I tend to be pro-life. But regardless of which side of the debate you're on, I don't think that public funding should be provided for abortions, except when the mother's life is in danger.''
Equality for everybody
ElizaBeth Jones, 20, hopes for the day she sees equal rights for every American. A Democrat, she believes the Republican party has no room in it for women, largely because of their emphasis on ``traditional'' family values, where fathers are wage-earners and mothers are kept at home. Their lack of support for the minimum-wage increase, which affected mostly women in the workplace, bolsters her belief.
She adds, ``I think I have high family values, meaning that I want to come from a country where all kinds of families are valued.''
Of anyone claiming the high moral ground, Philip Armentrout, 20, says simply, ``God is love, and so is Jesus, and Jesus loved the poor, and women, and everybody.'' He is a Democrat from Sewanee, Tenn., attending Roanoke College.
The importance of voting
Regardless of their upbringing, all these first-time voters wouldn't miss the opportunity to cast their ballots for president. They've been prepared for a long time.
Foster's parents always discussed issues with him and stressed the importance of civic duty.
Sharnika Jones' mother encouraged her to be aware of issues by reading the newspaper and watching the news. She says you never know when you might need to understand something that everybody else knows about.
Tamita Saunders' friends and co-workers have impressed on her the importance of voting. ``It takes everybody working together,'' she says.
``Vote, vote, vote. Rock it! It matters,'' says Democrat Ayren Moskowitz, 19, a Roanoke College student from Great Barrington, Mass.
Jul Basham says that she knows a lot of young people who don't trust government and therefore won't vote at all. ``But they have to live here too,'' she says.
LENGTH: Long : 186 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. 1. Leslie Woodmansee (left), aby CNBRepublican, and ElizaBeth Jones, a Democrat, talk politics:
``Republicans believe in restored power to the community,''
Woodmansee says. 2. Ryan Baxter, who works at Mill Mountain Coffee &
Tea in Roanoke, will be voting Democratic: ``It just makes you sick
when everybody knows the world is going down the drain,'' he says of
the environment. color. 3. Sharnika Jones (left), a YWCA child-care
coordinator, and Tamita Saunders, a customer-service representative
at the YW, both are undecided: If she could do one thing for kids,
Jones says, ``I would outlaw all guns. Period.''