ORONO – Over the blare of a U2 song coming from the boombox on her table, Sarah Bigney explained to a backpack-laden passer-by why he should vote for Howard Dean.

“He cares about what we care about,” Bigney, 19, told the young man as he passed through the University of Maine’s Memorial Union Friday morning, eyeing a pamphlet about the Vermont governor and would-be Democratic nominee for president.

Just 10 feet away, Christina Brown, seated behind a table full of John Kerry for President paraphernalia, made her own pitch for the Massachusetts senator and the race’s new front-runner after his comeback win in the Iowa caucuses.

“I know a lot of young people are pulling for Dean,” conceded Brown, a 20-year-old political science major and vice president of the campus’ college Democrats. “But Kerry can win, and I just want someone to beat George Bush.” With New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary just days away and Maine’s caucus set for Feb. 8, talk about the campaign predictably has picked up in New England, including at Maine’s college campuses.

Talk is cheap in presidential politics, however, and even cheaper among college-age voters, who statistics suggest notoriously stay clear of the polls come Election Day.

While overall turnout in presidential elections has declined since 1972 – although only by about 4 percentage points – the decline among 18 to 25 year olds has been much steeper – about 15 percentage points – according to a University of Maryland study.

“A lot of college students aren’t at an age that they fully comprehend the impact of elections in their lives,” said Richard Powell, a political science professor at the University of Maine.

Despite a predictable lack of votes coming out of college campuses, campaigns have continued to focus their efforts there, outfitting student volunteers with reams of literature, bumper stickers and T-shirts.

Why? In part, because motivated volunteers can be just as valuable as votes in presidential politics.

The Dean campaign has gone above and beyond past efforts to reach what it calls “Generation Dean.”

Every day for about the past week, the campaign has run a van from Orono to New Hampshire – stopping at campuses along the way – so more of its young volunteers can knock on doors in some of the country’s most fertile political ground.

Candidates such as Dean and Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich have fared well on campus, according to Powell, in part because they have been able to tap into students’ anti-establishment bent.

“College students tend to like the maverick,” Powell said, noting the popularity of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, among college students during the 2000 Republican primaries.

McCain serves as a case in point, however, that success on campus doesn’t necessarily translate into a primary win.

Despite Dean’s recent missteps after his Iowa loss and Kucinich’s perennially poor polling numbers, supporters of the candidates on campus remain loyal.

“Take a bumper sticker,” Jeff Lowell, a 34-year-old graduate student supporting Kucinich, told a young woman who stopped at his table Friday, two days after the candidate’s visit to campus drew about 200 supporters.

With media attention focused on the Democrats, at least some of the GOP faithful appear to be biding their time until the Democrats choose a nominee.

“Let’s see, you’re in college and it’s Saturday morning. What would you rather do with nine months to go before the election?” asked 21-year-old Chris Surprenant, an officer with the Colby College Republicans. “Sleep or go to a rally and watch [former New York Mayor] Rudy Giuliani get people pumped up about George Bush?”