Rock musicians and politicians shared the stage on Monday night as the UTM College Democrats held “Rally the Vote.”

The day before Tuesday’s election, the Democrats rallied their supporters in the UC game room and urged them to go to the polls to cast their ballots, despite the anticipated rainy weather.

Battery Horse, a local band, opened the event, which was attended by about 50 people.

Between speakers, the Democrats showed thirty-second commercials featuring their presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.).

Democrats urged students to vote for Kerry because of his stances on education, the federal budget and the war in Iraq.

Tennessee State Representative Mark Maddox, who was unopposed in yesterday’s general election, was pleased with the number of students who were interested in the political process.

State Senator Roy Herron, who was challenged by Republican Dennis Doster, stressed educational policy. He said if elected he would continue to fight to make tuition affordable and educational quality exceptional. He keyed on his connections to UTM. “I graduated from UTM,” Herron said.

“Both my parents, brother and sister went here. I taught here. It’s home.”

Herron also told students that they can make a difference on Election Day, especially in local races.

“There’s enough of [young people] that you can change an election. I have a friend who lost an election by six votes.”

Representative John Tanner, who represents most of west Tennessee in the US House, said he was glad to spend the night before Election Day at UTM.

Tanner spoke to the crowd about the need for fiscal reform and about the financial mismanagement of the Bush administration, which he called “generational mugging.” Tanner said the budget deficit and national debt of the Bush administration and Republican-run Congress is actually taxing young people, who will eventually have to pay it.

“Over the last four years, this country has borrowed in your name $1.7 billion a day,” Tanner said.

He also said that 72 percent of the budget deficit is being financed by other countries.

“My generation will be the first generation to leave the country in a worse financial position than we found it,” he said.

Tanner summed up the debt crisis as a four-year “financial orgy.” Tanner was opposed by Republican James Hart.

Amanda-Kayleen Bramell also spoke at the event. She said both her brothers, deployed to Iraq in January, have been shot and wounded in combat.

Bramell, a freshman political science major from Hendersonville, said that she found out her brother Kyle was shot in the arm in Iraq in August during her first week at college.

“I went to school for three days and was scared to death. We then learned he’d been shot in the arm. He can’t lift his arm because of nerve damage,” Bramell said. His arm may require amputation, she added.

“Cramer got shot September 22, 2004. That was the worst day of my life. All they told me was he’d been critically injured. I found out later that he was okay but would be a paraplegic the rest of his life,” she said.

Cramer, who was serving in the Air Force, was shot in the abdomen, and the bullet pierced his spinal cord, paralyzing him below the injury. Bramell says that he will be coming home from Germany for Thanksgiving, but that her family has to make their house and vehicle “handicap accessible,” which the government will not pay for.

“If George Bush has already done all this in four years with the threat of reelection, there’s no telling what he’ll do in the next four years,” she said.

Bramell said she decided to talk to the group because statistics often don’t hit home, but personal stories do.

“When you can put a name and a face with an unjust war, it clicks with people. Both my brothers were shot for no good reason. Iraq never attacked us.”

Adviser Luther Mercer and College Democrats President Wil Hammond were exceedingly pleased with the turnout for the event and thought it went well.

They both stated that they were more concerned about college students voting rather than whom they vote for. After the event, Democrats reassembled and distributed literature to students in university housing.