Campus campaign

Democratic running for U.S. House seat tells high school students about the power of voting.Congressional candidate Steve Young may have gotten an invitation to speak at Newport Harbor High School on Tuesday morning, but he came on campus with a mission of his own.

“People ask me why I talk to high schoolers,” the Democrat told bystanders as a dozen students filed behind him into the Ralph K. Reed Gymnasium. “We have such a low voter turnout among adults that we need a quantum shift in our emphasis. We need to reach out to young voters and tell them that voting is power.”

Moments later, as the crowd built to nearly 100, Young muttered, “This is a huge group. I may have to take my jacket off.”

In the end, the candidate’s coat stayed on, but he still leveled with his young audience during the next 40 minutes. As students used their reading period to visit the gym, Young delivered an unabashedly partisan talk on his Democratic values, including the economy, women’s rights, and, of course, education.

His ultimate message was twofold: America needs your help, and the ballot box is your weapon.

The presentation, which also included a question-and-answer session with the audience, was the latest project of Newport Harbor’s Student Political Action Committee. With the Dec. 6 special election just over a month away, the club invited both Young and his Republican rival, Sen. John Campbell, to speak to students. By Tuesday, club leaders said they had not heard from Campbell, but they managed to snare Young as their first guest speaker of the year.

The club, which is nonpartisan, invited both candidates to enlighten students about politics in general -- even though many of the club’s officers, and many in Tuesday’s audience, are still under 18. When Young asked the student crowd how many of them had registered to vote, only around five hands shot up.

“I can’t get out there to vote yet, but hopefully I can sway some people in the right direction,” said senior Harrison Brown, 17, a Democrat who has volunteered for Young’s campaign.

Young began his informal speech by getting straight to his first point, with barely an introduction. In the opening minute, he encouraged the young women in the audience to become politically active, arguing that women are still a marginalized group in most American legislatures.

“One of the first things I’m doing when I reach Congress -- and this may seem odd to you men -- I’m going to join the Women’s Caucus,” Young told the crowd. “I look forward to the day when it’s not just a television show about the president being a woman.”

Most of Young’s discussion centered around preventing the outsourcing of American jobs, a key point in his campaign. Two solutions, he said, were to enact legislation to discourage companies from shipping jobs overseas, and to graduate more students into engineering jobs, a field China is dominating.

Some students in attendance, counting themselves Republicans, expressed doubt about the candidate’s views.

“I think he wants our government to be involved with business, and I’m really a free-market guy,” said junior Harold Levy, 16. “I think businesses doing what they need is going to benefit America. If you can be competitive and bring back American jobs, that’s going to benefit us as well.”

Junior Charlie Ramser, 16, also a Republican, said he admired Young’s ambitions even if he disagreed with some of his points.

“For a Democrat, it was rather convincing,” he said about the presentation. “I liked a lot of his issues.”

After the bell rang and most students returned to class, Young remained in the gym talking with a select group of students. As a reward for his time, Political Action Committee president Laure Kohne presented Young with one of the group’s T-shirts.

Laure, a 17-year-old senior, declined to tie herself to a political party but called herself “a moderate-leaning left.” Before the speech, however, she noted she still held out hope for a visit from Campbell.

A spokeswoman for the Republican’s campaign did not return calls asking whether he had received an invitation from Newport Harbor.

“Maybe if this goes really well, he might get jealous,” Laure said.20051102ipazj1knPHOTOS BY DOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Newport Harbor High School students Phil Houten, left, Lara Schilling and Rush Stevens look over Steve Young’s campaign literature before the Democratic candidate for the 48th Congressional District spoke in the school’s gymnasium Tuesday. 20051102ipazjbknPHOTOS BY DOUGLAS ZIMMERMAN / DAILY PILOT(LA)Newport Harbor High School students Phil Houten, left, Lara Schilling and Rush Stevens look over Steve Young’s campaign literature before the Democratic candidate for the 48th Congressional District spoke in the school’s gymnasium Tuesday. Steve Young addresses students Tuesday. The school’s Political Action Committee invited him to talk politics.