Courtesy of the Bowdoin Orient Archives

As the election nears and political concerns weigh more heavily on the campus consciousness, in times that are regularly referred to as “unprecedented,” it feels appropriate to turn to spaces of past political conversation in the College’s history. Though heavily restructured since its founding in 1871, the Orient has remained one such space. Traced through the paper’s extensive archives, student engagement with political moments and history emerges in many forms.

The Orient’s coverage of the national presidential election traces back to the late 19th century, in what was the 26th volume of the paper (this issue, by comparison, is in volume 154). An entry in the “Personal” alumni updates section of the February 17, 1897 issue reported that a graduate of the medical college (Class of 1877) had delivered Maine’s electoral vote to Washington, D.C. for the certification of the results in time for the January inauguration.

“Dr. J. F. Hill of Augusta, one of the presidential electors, was the messenger who, last month, bore to Washington the official returns of the balloting of the six presidential electors of Maine,” the entry read.

All six of Maine’s electoral votes went to the Republican candidate, William McKinley, who won against Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryan. That year, the issue at the forefront of voters’ minds was currency regulation; “free silver” and the gold standard were proposed as differing approaches to alleviating the United States’ economic depression.

Fast forward a couple centuries to the late ’90s, and the campus’s political temperament takes the forefront. In letters to the editors and op-eds on issues from apartheid to campaign finance reform, and even election predictions by faculty and editorial board endorsements, students responded to the defining historical moments they lived through.

On October 25, 1996, in an opinion piece entitled “Presidential Pardons,” student contributor Scott Hickey incisively comments on the perceived inadequacies of that year’s presidential contenders, incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole.

“Let’s start with our incumbent president, William ‘Bubba’ Clinton, who has only proven his economic genius in office by buying the Biggie fries at Wendy’s for only 10 cents more than the medium,” Hickey wrote. “Dole also has this delusion about the ‘good old days’ when everyone lived in peace and harmony except that people with black skin were segregated from people with white skin and had miserable living conditions and weren’t treated equally and basically had no chance to advance in any socially acceptable fashion.”

In fact, the disillusionment with the presidential candidates was so significant that a 1996 column “Political Persuasions” by sophomore government major Wystan Ackerman ’98 grapples with Americans’ focus on the presidential candidates. Highlighting two notable “Second Fiddles,” Ackerman illustrates the standout presence of vice presidential candidates Al Gore and Jack Kemp in one installment of the column.

“Gore’s character is squeaky clean, compared to that of his boss,” Ackerman wrote. “The Democratic presidential nomination in 2000 should be his, if he wants it.”

Hopefully, someone checked in with Ackerman come the year 2000. Leading up to what would be one of the most historic elections in American history, many people had opinions on George W. Bush, Ralph Nader and Al Gore. In fact, the Orient reported the results of an online poll of the Bowdoin community in the November 3, 2000 issue that found 57 percent of respondents were for Gore, 24 percent for Nader and 19 percent for Bush; however, only 37 people responded to the survey, so this would be statistically insignificant.

In fact, there were many op-eds during the fall of 2000 for and against almost all three candidates for this election, with some headlines being “George ‘Dubya’ Bush, Idiot Extraordinaire,” “The Nader Manifesto: The Urgency of Third Party Politics,” “Run Ralphie, Run,” “The Green Party, as hip as Abercrombie and Fitch?” “Gore, a waste of a vote,” “Why not to vote for Nader,” and “Mr. Gore, are you all right? You’re looking a little Green.” 

Prior to the 2000 election, the Orient wrote an editorial headlined, “Bush uneducated, thinks others should be too.” While not a direct endorsement of Nader or Gore alternatively, the article focuses heavily on Bush’s public education plans, which it finds “distressing.” The week following the election’s muddied results, the Orient published an editorial headlined “Idealistic Nader voters naive, selfish.”

“While Ralph Nader basks in the glow of media attention for his spoiler role in this year’s presidential election, the apocalypse looms near,” the editorial starts. “Bush has been briefly declared president-elect once, and it seems likely—popular vote be damned—that he is soon to bring his impish demeanor and arrogant jackal smile to Pennsylvania Avenue.”

The College was very split following the tumultuous 2000 election. Moving into the 2004 election, tensions were also high in the wake of 9/11. In the issue preceding election day on October 29, 2004, another student contributor made “The Case for George W. Bush,” reflective of this post-9/11 nativist sentiment.

“The 21st century … marks the beginning of a new struggle against terrorist killers,” Alexander P. Linhart ’06 wrote. “We cannot reason with these terrorists, and they will never stop their evil quest until they destroy our way of life.”

In the features section of that same issue, professors and Orient staff made their predictions for the election’s outcome; however, the decisive Kerry victory that was foretold would not come to pass. Contrary to the previous presidential election’s polarized opinions section, there were less written op-eds for each candidate. In fact, the editorial the week before the election entitled “Our pick for president” was a pro-Red Sox piece following their first World Series win since 1918.

In contrast to specific candidate support or lack thereof, many people had reactions about the election generally, with more voiced apathy toward voting. In his column “The Right Stuff,” Ben Peisch wrote his installment for the issue on November 5, 2004, satirizing this very issue, headlined “These days, voting is for wimps.”

“I realized that voting would be hard, hard work when I saw an interview on TV where a young man about my age was quoted saying ‘[Voting was difficult] because there was a lot to reach [on the ballot],’” Peisch wrote.

Moving to 2008, there was increased excitement about the election with more opinions for Barack Obama and John McCain throughout the issues leading up to the election. On October 17, 2008, there was an op-ed for McCain, focused on his economic policy, entitled “McCain’s economic plan values liberty.” 

The week following, the Orient itself endorsed Obama for the presidency in 2008. This endorsement was accompanied by another pro-Obama economy article headlined “Obama promotes middle-class economic growth” and an anti-McCain economy op-ed written by none other than Professor of Government and Asian Studies Henry Laurence entitled “McCain and Palin’s rhetoric hypocritical, inarticulate.”

The Orient election survey reported on October 31, 2008, found that 84 percent of the surveyed student body supported Obama.

The next week’s issue documented the ensuing rapturous excitement, with “Students Rejoice in Obama Victory” taking the front page and rounding out the official election season coverage.

“Approximately 200 students marched on campus and in town to celebrate Obama’s victory on Tuesday night,” Orient staff member Mary Hellen Miller ’09 reported.

However, following the 2008 election, there was another call from the Orient editorial board to keep the momentum of political discourse going with the editorial entitled “It’s not over yet.”

“Though the election of Barack Obama is a start, it will not bring about change by itself. Over the next four—or eight—years, it will be our responsibility to hold Obama to the promises he has made over the last two,” the editorial reads. “Read the newspaper every day. Write letters to lawmakers. Work for non-profits, or even for the government. Do your civic duty—it extends much further than simply casting a vote. We owe no less to our peers, ourselves and our country.”

In 2012, there was a less active opinions section about the election with single articles, primarily about Obama and none overtly in support of Mitt Romney. On November 2, 2012, in his opinions column “Half-Assed,” Judah Isseroff ’13 focused on how Obama can do more to rekindle the support of voters. Additionally, another column called “The Lively Stateswoman” by Daisy Alioto ’13 talked more generally about how Hillary Clinton was treated as Secretary of State.

The Orient editorial board focused on the Maine state election rather than on the presidential race, endorsing voting yes on Question 1 on the Maine state ballot, a referendum for the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“If Question 1 passes, Maine will number among the few states that were early to affirm marriage equality for all citizens. Should the measure pass, we hope the old saying that ‘As Maine goes, so goes the nation,’ proves to be true,” the editorial writes.

The following week, the top story highlighted Obama’s reelection, Angus King’s first election to the Senate and the legalization of same-sex marriage in Maine, the first state to pass such a law by popular vote.

Going into 2016, the sense of dread was strong. Columnist Ryan Ward reframed this sentiment in a piece published in September of that year, “The apocalyptic election.”

“I do agree that this election is apocalyptic, in a sense. But rather than thinking of apocalypse as a fiery end-times scenario, I am thinking more along the lines of the Greek word apocalypsis, which originally meant an ‘unveiling or revealing,’” Ward wrote. “That is, I think this election is apocalyptic in the sense that we are seeing problems that have been around for a while but that have not shown themselves in such a dramatic way until this election.”

Regardless of this reframing, the psychological impact of the election results was immediate, as reported in the front page news, “Shock, fear, uncertainty follow Trump’s election,” as reported by Jessica Piper ’19. The piece included photos of students as they discovered the news around campus.

“Liam Gunn ’17, electoral engagement fellow at the Joseph McKeen Center for the Common Good, took to the microphone. ‘It has been called, with Donald Trump elected to be our next President of the United States,’ Gunn said. His announcement was met with gasps from the crowd and many students broke out crying,” Piper writes.

Additionally, the same week, the page two editor pulled an article from the archives headlined “Protestors burn Reagan in effigy,” which was originally published in the Orient on November 7, 1980.

The week of and following, there were a handful of op-eds published about international trends of populism allowing for Trump’s win and the flawed coverage of the election by mainstream media. The Orient editorial on November 11, 2016, was titled “When they go low,” which focused on moving past the election and acting to protect the rights of everyone in the country.

By this time next week, there will be more Orient election coverage in the archives to dig through in 30 years.