Obama Fever Sweeps College Campuses

Obama Fever Sweeps College Campuses


New America Media, News Feature, Asya Pikovsky, Posted: Dec 04, 2007

Editor’s Note: Barack Obama has the youth and charisma that appeal to college-aged voters, even with those who identify with the Republican Party. NAM contributor Asya Pikovsky interviews her classmates at Bowdoin College and students at Northwestern.

BRUNSWICK, Maine – Think it’s difficult to get students engaged in politics? It’s easier than you think: Take one candidate who looks like your older brother, speaks like your smarter roommate, and thinks like your government professor. Add a campaign site designed by Facebook, a funky campaign logo, and a good dose of pure, unadulterated idealism. Top this with words like “hope,” “change” and “now” – and you have Barack Obama, the candidate who has infused college campuses across the country with a new political vigor.

Obama’s supporters often stress that he’s not a “Washington” candidate. He has been in Washington, D.C., for only two years; his campaign is based out of Chicago, and he minimizes his ties to the capital in his speech.

So it’s no surprise that the epicenter of the student movement for Obama should have started in a cold northeastern corner of America, in Brunswick, Maine, with the small ambitions of Meredith Segal, now a senior at Bowdoin College.

“He’s been my man the whole way along,” says Segal with a smile. “He inspires you to believe that America can be great again.”

Segal, like many, first encountered Obama in 2004, when she saw his speech at the Democratic National Convention. She started “Students for Barack Obama” on Facebook in 2006. The group detonated. Within weeks, several thousand students had signed up, and Segal, to her great surprise, began receiving calls from Obama’s campaign. Several months later, she was named executive director of Students for Barack Obama, by this time a nationwide organization encompassing hundreds of thousands of members.

“Many young people never thought they would go to a rally or campaign. Now look at how many people Obama has brought to the table who were formerly disengaged,” Segal says.

Obama ranks first of all presidential candidates among young voters, according to a recent CBS/MTV/New York Times poll. A majority of voters between 17 and 29 years old intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008, the poll found, with 18 percent "enthusiastic" about Barack Obama and 17 percent for Hillary Clinton.

Before joining the campaign, Segal had been involved with activist groups on campus, picketing in demonstrations with College Democrats on issues such as health care and the war. She had never been part of the traditional campaign process, though, until she heard Obama speak.

“For many people, politics represent rhetoric and broken promises, but not real change,” she says. “When you think about it, we have only grown up with George Bush. Today, people want to see things change.”

Students want someone fresh, someone removed from Washington politics, someone who knows the Constitution and who will base his presidency on it – in short, someone like Obama, which may explain the “Obama syndrome” sweeping campuses and wrapping students into an almost-messianic fervor for the candidate.

“Here are our options: inspire and rejuvenate the voting populace, or disenchant and disengage them with the political happenings of our country for a generation or even more to come,” says Nate Tavel, who heads Bowdoin’s chapter of Students for Barack Obama.

Obama champions also have the added benefit of continual support from the national organization for youth mobilization efforts, which other campaigns have been lacking.

“None of this would have been possible if the campaign weren’t so focused on its grassroots,” says Tavel, who says the national organization supplies students with the inside-word on upcoming events, the tickets to sell and the Obama apparel to establish a legitimate group and facilitate real change. “An Edwards and a Hillary group tried starting up on campus as well earlier in the year,” he adds, “but they lacked the real-deal pins and signs to grab the student eye. Both groups fizzled out.”

Obama also seems to possess the rare gift for appealing to students in both parties. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson are each favored by less than five percent of young people, according to the youth poll. CBS News recently reported that GOP primary voters were more enthusiastic about Obama (8 percent) than Thompson or Sen. John McCain.

For Will Hales, a conservative senior from New Orleans, Obama presents a fresh alternative, free of the posturing that he says the Republican candidates employ.

“The 2004 election has made me more moderate when I look at candidates,” says Hales. “I like Obama a lot because I disassociate him from D.C.”

He is irritated with many of his party’s candidates this season, saying that “Giuliani, Romney, and McCain are all playing a dangerous game, trying to prove who is the most conservative. It’s not accurate of any of them, especially Giuliani.”

This election resembles the 1980 election that Reagan won, Hales says, “because he brought a lot of hope.”

Lauren Alexander, a sophomore at Northwestern University, also believes this is one of the most important elections the country has faced.

“Personally, I feel a strong responsibility to find the facts about each candidate because this election could make or break the process of change,” she says. “People who are apathetic and worried about where the country is going have no power. But people who are really energized to vote for the first time will hopefully change the direction of the country.”

“Right now,” she smiles, “I’m caught between Barack and a hard place.”


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