If the presidential election, a culmination of months of volunteer campaigning, was an emotional, high-energy party, the College Democrats and Students for Kerry were left with hangovers and a bad taste in their mouths.

But they were also left with a renewed drive to "keep the momentum going and start up fresh," according to Noelle Gilbreath, co-chair of Students for Kerry.

"It's tough campaigning," said Gilbreath, a College of Arts & Sciences junior. "You have to have a lot of spirit and heart to do this."

Although President George Bush's re-election was "a very big blow" to Democratic student leaders, Gilbreath and other leaders said they still made progress in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee area and at Marquette.

Besides the election of Democratic candidate Gwen Moore to the Wisconsin fourth district of the U.S. House of Representatives and the re-election of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), John Kerry won the majority of votes in all eight wards in and around the Marquette campus.

And Marquette's Democratic groups deserve some credit for the numbers, according to Rebeccah Sjolund, chair of College Democrats.

"We got a lot more people involved than were in the 2000 election," said Sjolund, a College of Arts & Sciences junior.

Although voter turnout of the 18 to 29 age demographic "didn't increase as much as the hype said it would, in Wisconsin we generally had high young voter turnout," Sjolund said.

In addition, campaign efforts have made Marquette more welcoming to "progressives" at the "traditionally conservative Jesuit" institution, according to Meredith Salsbery, former chair of the College Democrats.

Salsbery, a College of Arts & Sciences senior, emphasized the spontaneous Election Day rally on West Wisconsin Avenue in front of the John P. Raynor, S.J. Library in which College Democrats and College Republicans faced off in a frenzy of political chanting on both sides of the street.

Democratic student activists are trying to maintain the enthusiasm and feeling of hope despite their apparent setback, according to Jared Erdman, co-chair of Students for Kerry.

"All sorts of things concern us about the next four years," said Erdman, a College Arts & Sciences senior. "But our country is not going to go up in flames just because one president was elected."

An upbeat attitude is essential to building a strong, unified Democratic Party base for 2008, according to College Democrats member Peter Christian.

"We're going to make sure the American people know politics isn't about self-serving scare tactics or big business," said Christian, a College of Communication junior. "It's about the genuine improvement of society."

Erdman, unwilling to think about the 2008 presidential race just yet, is focusing on the mid-term elections in 2006, when Gov. Jim Doyle (D) and Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) are up for re-election.

The now-defunct Students for Kerry organization will likely become a Students for Doyle group pending a change in their constitution, Gilbreath said.

"We don't want to completely disband the group," she said, but Students for Doyle is "still kind of in the works."

And the College Democrats, now under Sjolund's leadership due to Salsbery's December graduation, will focus in the coming months on bringing speakers to campus to educate students about "humanitarian issues," Sjolund said.

"Regardless of which president we have in office, we should focus on ending the war in Iraq," she said.

Also, following Sen. John Kerry's concession speech's theme of partisan cooperation, Sjolund said she has no plan to fight conservative student groups.

"We're not going to have a battle against College Republicans for four years," she said. "There's no use tearing the campus apart."