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Jan 23, 2008 9:14 am US/Central
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Anoka Student Fights For Political Efficacy
ANOKA, Minn. (WCCO) ―
A Twin Cities high school student is taking the upcoming Minnesota caucuses very seriously. He took it upon himself to organize a caucus training session for his schoolmates today, after school.
Anthony Maki is 17 years old and a senior at Anoka High School. He turns 18 in June, making him eligible to vote in the November election, and able to participate in the Minnesota caucuses next month.
He said he was bummed that he couldn't vote four years ago in the last presidential election.
"It was kind of disappointment in 2004 not to be able to vote and it was really, really hot. I remember in 9th grade sitting at the lunch table and us friends would get into fights. It would be awful, but we couldn't really do anything about it."
Anthony admits he's way into politics and has been for a long time. He says he got really pumped up when he saw the huge turnout at the Iowa caucuses a few weeks ago ... particularly among young voters.
He decided to organize an event at his school to teach other teenagers about the election process after a friend of his made the remark, "Who the heck cares anyway?"
Anthony talked with a couple of his teachers and a guidance counselor, and then got on the phone and invited a bunch of campaign representatives and political party staff members to his school.
Here's the agenda for the afterschool event today. It runs from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Anoka High School. It starts with a one-hour presentation on the caucus process, led by Anthony himself and representatives from the state Republican and DFL parties.
Next, there's 30 minutes of Q and A with the various campaign reps. Staff members from the Twin Cities offices of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul say they are coming ... as well as representatives of Mike Ciresi and Al Franken, who are running for U.S. Senate here in Minnesota.
Anthony is also expecting someone from Elwyn Tinklenberg's campaign. He's running for Congress. There will also be some time to mix and mingle at the end of the program.
He thinks at least 40 students are planning to stay after school for his caucus training session. He's prepared to hand out information to at least 100 people.
Students will also have an opportunity to register to vote at the event.
"I think this is one of the first times in one of our presidential elections that the candidates have tapped into the youth and grass root efforts and realize that appealing to young people are going to be useful to their campaigns," he said.
As to why he thinks more young people don't vote, Anthony said "they become apathetic, they think, 'Things are so bad right now, how am I going to be able to change anything? So I just won't vote. I don't care.' And I want to try to convince all the youth out there to go out and vote and you will have an effect."
The high school senior organized this meeting without much help at all. He says he was nervous about calling the campaign offices, so he wrote out a script for what he wanted to say before he picked up the phone.
It worked. Most said they'd send someone to help out. The Minnesota caucuses, by the way, take place on Feb. 5.
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