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Bridget Siegel, 21, tutors inner-city children as a volunteer. She ran a college voter-registration drive that signed up hundreds of new voters. She wants to do something for her country after she graduates, maybe even work in a political campaign.
But the Georgetown University senior finds it hard to love the political process she sees on the evening news these days.
"I live with five other girls, and they want nothing to do with politics," said Siegel, an energetic model of undergraduate idealism. "I try to get them to vote. They say: 'On what issue? On the scandal? On the president's private life?' That doesn't give them anything to vote for."
On the handsome Georgetown campus, where the young Bill Clinton (class of '68) was enthralled by politics in the 1960s, his successors look at today's national scene and say: "Yuck!"
Like citizens in every age group, Georgetown students say they are turned off by scandal, don't see many reasons to vote and can't name any heroes among the nation's current leaders.
In the short run, the Clinton scandals have created turmoil on Capitol Hill, a backlash against Republicans in the polls and a general national frustration with politics.
But the reactions of Georgetown students may also be an early signal of potential long-term effects as well: increasing disaffection and declining confidence in political institutions, especially in the next generation of citizens.
Great events often echo in the life of a nation. World War II produced a generation of vigorous leaders. Vietnam spawned a long crisis of confidence. Watergate touched off a wave of legalistic reform, including now-tattered regulations on campaign finance and the increasingly unpopular independent counsel law.
The events that led to Clinton's impeachment this month aren't of that heroic scale, but some ripple effects are already being felt.
Last month's congressional election, held in mid-scandal, produced the lowest voter turnout since 1942: Only 36% of the eligible population came out to vote, down from almost 39% four years earlier. "Our idea of 'citizen' . . . is descending from participant to spectator," warned Michael J. Sandel, a scholar of political philosophy at Harvard University.
Public's Confidence Is Waning Again
Public opinion surveys are finding that Americans' confidence in the political system, which...