After watching the third debate of this election year, I am extremely concerned that neither Bush nor Gore really cares if the younger public actually goes out and votes. I was extremely pleased when the candidates were asked about voter apathy among young people.

Finally, I thought, a chance for them to address the reasons young people do not care. Perhaps it was going to be a way for them to even gain some support from the younger audience.

At the very least, it could be a way for younger voters to see which candidate wishes to represent our portion of the public. All of my hopes were crushed about 35 seconds into Gore’s response.

What he did was address the issue as a problem and then start talking about other issues that he wanted to discuss. This to me showed exactly how much he really cared if we vote or not. Bush’s response was a little better, but he still failed to address the issue. Instead, he was forced to respond to the thought line Gore went into after dismissing the question.

If either of the candidates truly cared whether young people voted, why don’t we see them at more colleges and universities speaking to the people that could make or break the election. Both of the candidates have made campaign trips to Iowa. They have been in Des Moines. The last time I checked, Des Moines really is not that far from Ames. Why not stop at Iowa State?

The candidates do not truly care if we vote. In fact if a greater percentage of us did vote all of the polls that are predicting who is ahead at this point could possibly be way off. The one thing that the candidates forget is that yes, the undecided voters are important, but the really important voters are those people who are not registered, simply because there is more of them.

As the future leaders of America why should we not care who the president is and what the presidency stands for? We are the people that will be affected the longest by the new policy that is being proposed.

So if you don’t like some of the ideas that are coming from a candidate, or you really like something that another stands for, go out and get registered to vote. Then do the most important thing, vote. Show the candidates young people are important, and your vote will be counted.

Currently Iowa is an undecided state in many of the polls. Help make the decision for the candidate that you would like see get the electoral votes of Iowa, vote.

Katie GilbertJuniorPolitical science and sociology