KEENE, N.H.— “Change” has trumped all of the other 2008 campaign buzz-words— words like “experience” “trust” “reliability.” It has come to dominate the rhetoric on the campaign trail and conversations across party lines. It was “change” that catapulted Obama to victory in Iowa, pushed Edwards into a second-place finish and edged its way into Hillary’s carefully crafted pitch, morphing her message of tested leadership into a warning that it takes experience to effect change. Obama is the Democratic candidate that looks and speaks most like change and as a result has so far attracted the most supporters among young voters.

It’s no surprise that Gen-Y has embraced change as a hyper political mantra, and not just out of dissatisfaction with the Bush years. We’re always on, hooked-up and on hyper-drive, constantly surfing, texting and Facebook-messaging our way toward the next big thing— the latest technology, theory, fashion, music, art, YouTube post, drunken celebrity sighting, etc. We’re interested in change in a sped-up way, taking the avant-garde industrial-era impulse to digital extremes, acting inevitably on the consumerist marketing indoctrination we’ve endured as a culture for decades. Out with the old and in with the new. We are not the victims of a societal or generational Attention Deficit Disorder— or maybe we are. Mostly we’re just impatient. And the thing we want to know now is what kind of change are we talking about here, in New Hampshire, the day before the primary election of 2008? What are the actual differences in the changes the candidates are proposing and what are the differences in the perceptions of those proposed changes? What makes one politico’s vision of change cooler than another’s?

We spoke to first-time and future voters at Edwards and Obama events, asking them exactly what kind of change they’re itching for and what it’s going to take to capture their vote. The events we attended were a lot alike, held just a few miles from one another and a few hours apart on a refreshingly warm winter afternoon. Both attracted large crowds, accommodating groups in entryways and auditoriums when the main venues filled to capacity. Reporters and campaign officials estimated that anywhere from 1800 to 3000 people turned out to see Obama at Keene High School. Edwards spoke to a full-house of about 500 at Keene State College’s student center.

Both candidates pledged to address the country’s inadequate health care and education systems and to fight to end the corporate and special-interest stronghold on government. Both candidates also found themselves working hard to sway audiences of largely undecided voters. When Obama asked for a show of hands of those who had yet to decide, fingers danced over half of the heads in the room.

Ryan Gilland, a 19-year-old St. Lawrence student home for the holidays, was one of those undecided voters. I met him before Edwards’ town hall, which he was attending with his friend Lauren. Gillard’s was looking to choose between Edwards and Obama. He was planning to attend an Obama event later that evening.

“They’re both very well spoken and very knowledgeable,” he said. “Their aim is change and a lot of change.” Gillard said he had dedicated his Sunday to seeing the candidates to make an informed choice come Tuesday. “It takes a lot of energy and time to educate yourself,” he said. “I’ve run into a lot of frustration. You never really can know for sure…”

Many other undecided voters I met expressed the same frustration.

Alissa MacDonald, 19, went out to see Obama speak after other efforts to find out what he was all about proved futile. Afraid of making “a bad decision” at the polls, she tuned to the ABC/Facebook debates to brush up on all the candidates’ positions. But she found the format confusing and convoluted and switched the channel before the democratic contenders took the stage.

“It seemed like they were going in circles,” she said. “They just started attacking each other’s positions.”

Many agree that youth turnout is a reflection of accessibility and education, not interest. A group of undecided college students from New York waiting outside to see Obama ensured me that any sense of political apathy among their peers was a product of an antiquated governmental structure and the two-party system.

“I don’t think we’re apathetic. I think people are just turning to other issues,” said Ann, a 22-year-old student who declined to give her last name. She said she and her friends had a hard time fitting their beliefs into the constrained reality made by partisanship and party-driven platforms. Turned off by too many politicians saying the same thing, she sees her peers getting more involved in community service and working for change in specific areas, like toward a cleaner environment and for gun control. She and her friends also agreed that going to school makes voting a hassle, and many people think absentee ballots “don’t really count,” so they don’t bother.

For those leaning toward Obama, it was his candor and charisma that seemed to win them over.

Alex Mednick, a 19-year-old college student, told me after an Obama rally that he had come to the event undecided, switching between Edwards and Obama, but that he was won over by the way Obama joked and bantered with the audience from the stage. “I think [Edwards and Obama are] both willing to fight for change,” he said. “But really, it’s Obama’s character.”

Shane Carley, an 18-year-old Republican who says he plans to vote for Rudy Giuliani tomorrow, said Obama has that “young Kennedy-esque thing that can bring people together.” Carely attended the Edwards town hall earlier in the afternoon and said that after seeing both candidates speak, Obama was a “helluva lot more inspiring.”

Athough Carley said he disagrees with many of Obama’s positions “on an ideological level,” he said he can see himself backing Obama in the general election because of his “crossover appeal” and ability to cross the aisle of partisan politics. “If I don’t have someone that I can agree with 100 percent, I’d rather have someone who can bring the country together.”

Caroline D, 20, started volunteering for the Obama campaign after she came home from studying abroad. “Obama seems to get young people,” she said. “I take him more at face value… The other night when he won the caucus, it made me really proud to be an American. It gave me hope. It got me energized to see that.”

Although there was no doubt that perceptions of Obama’s authenticity and natural cool influenced some of the young voters’ decisions, he also seemed to address issues close to the heart of many college-age students.

The Number One issue? Education.

Melissa Polasik, 18, was part of a group of students participating in the Chicago-based Mikva Challenge, a nonprofit organization that shuttles students across the country to spend a few days embedded with candidates on the campaign trail. Polasik was traveling with Edwards and was disappointed that his town hall stump speech was so focused on health care, not education, as had been advertised. “[Education issues are] going to get the young people to vote, the issues on education and financial aid because that’s their immediate future,” she said.

One of the group leaders, Aila Levy, agreed.

“Health care, isn’t as relevant when you’re young and invincible,” she said.

Polasik and Levy, who had stopped by to see Obama speak at a rally in Manchester earlier in the day, were impressed to hear Obama talking a lot about student loans and education, a sentiment shared by the audience in Keene that night, which erupted into cheers and applause at the mention of providing a $4,000 stipend to students in exchange for national service.

I asked Polasik, who was among the most astute and articulate students I met that day, the difference between the Edwards change and the Obama change— how two candidates that semed to support the same movement in American politics could see such a staggering gap in support among 18- to 29-year-olds in Iowa. Her diagnosis? Obama is about hope and inspiration and Edwards is all about the people. This time around, she suggested, the visionary trumps the populist.

“I think growing up, we’re going to be the generation that [has to deal] with it all. We’re next in line to pick up [the pieces],” Polasik said. “We have to have a voice in it. Why wait when you can change things now?”