Politics: Amid the Rah-Rah: Reality

People who think U.S. college kids are apathetic might change their minds after watching that widespread quadrennial campus phenomenon—the mock political convention.

Biggest and boomingest of them was held in the Washington and Lee University gymnasium in Lexington, Va., last week. The 1,256 just-pretend Republican delegates were in dead earnest. Months ago they had polled real-life G.O.P. state leaders, learned how they might vote at the real Republican convention in July. Now the kids were committed to vote as nearly like the actual delegation as possible—so much so that many mock delegations...