GU students’ book nets national attention

They look alike, but they think differently.

At least that’s what CNN said Monday about two Gonzaga University students who published a book of political essays from college students across the country.

On MSNBC Friday, interviewers said it was nice to see young people get energized.

Now Chris Matthews, host of “Hard Ball,” said the two should keep election night open.

“I can’t wait for a ‘Hard Ball’ question,” said Rob Grabow, 23, a Democrat who’s lived in Wyoming, Montana and Alaska.

Grabow and Dean Robbins, 22, a Republican with ties to Southern California, worked together to create “What We Think,” a book of essays from college-age people.

The book has already received a lot of media attention during its first week of release.

The pair borrowed $17,000 from family, obtained an office on loan from their college and managed to attract 400 submissions from college students in 34 states.

The book went up for sale Tuesday night on the Barnes & Noble Web site. Amazon.com offered the book Thursday.

At one point, at least, “We’re outselling the first four Harry Potter books,” Grabow told a friend on the phone this week.

On Wednesday, they kept regular watch on their book, which started as the 48,107th most popular seller on Barnesandnoble.com and climbed to the 918th best seller. It peaked at 138 before falling back to 275 in the hours after their MSNBC appearance Friday afternoon.

Best-seller or not, the book opens a window on young voters in swing states. Check out the nine printed submissions from the University of Pennsylvania and five from Ohio.

Overall, the 99 essays come from all over the map: from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., to the College of Alameda in California; from Lehigh University in Duluth, Minn., to the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The exposure has both young men and their families giddy from the attention.

“My mom just went nuts. She was laughing and crying on the phone,” Grabow said.

They spoke with Dennis Miller by phone and with producers from “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on Comedy Central and Fox News, which might have them on.

An estimated 5 million to 10 million people may have caught their two appearances on CNN Monday morning. CNN anchor Rick Sanchez started off their interview by asking if they realized how much they looked alike.

They laughed at the jibe. But their book takes their 34 million-strong generation of 18- to 24 year-olds very seriously.

Both agree that what they discovered by poring over 400 essays challenged their beliefs about what kind of people made up their generation.

They had come to believe the media-fueled notion that their generation was apathetic, but their book-building process dashed that view.

“The students who wrote us are passionate, they care about the issues, and they’ve thought about the issues a lot,” Grabow said.

In “One Epiphany,” George Washington University student Mischa Sogut explains her view: that so-called anarchists who are “sublimely free from the hive-mind of the rest of us” all dress the same. Sogut writes: “I’m a New York blue-state non-believing Jewish liberal on a massive scholarship to a private urban East Coast university who reads the papers every day, who could never give up eating meat … whose grandparents were union members, and whose great-grandparents were Communists.”

There are essays on disability, race, single parenthood, and an eerie, provocative piece by a Gonzaga student that attempts to humanize the last thoughts of the airplane hijackers who crashed passenger jets into the World Trade Centers.

“No Man is an Island,” by Justin Padley, challenged Grabow and Robbins, who debated whether the one-page essay should be included. They chose to run the piece despite concerns that it potentially generated sympathy for the hijackers.

“We went back to our mission,” Grabow said. “We’re trying to create a forum for 18- to 24-year-olds that’s compelling for them.”

Another Gonzaga student, Melissa Warburton, wrote about being a feminist Republican who will vote for President Bush and not support either the death penalty or abortion.

“Many women, mainly feminists, refuse to believe that I still have feminist beliefs. I am constantly amazed at how upset people get when trying to determine what political ideology I should be categorized in,” she wrote.

“I believe America could get a lot more accomplished if people took each issue separately instead of lumping them together to fit the mold of a certain group.”

Eventually, Grabow and Robbins plan to publish “What We Think II,” a collection of their peers’ thoughts on God. They’re also considering an international version of their first book.

Whether they’ll make their money back – well, their first commission check is due in a couple of weeks. Then they’ll see if publishing pays.