Those who argue that this senator from Illinois has rock star potential are ignoring one thing; he already is a rock star!
On February 25, Senator Barack Obama, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for presidency, packed the Nutter Center with 11,000 people. This same week, Hillary Clinton filled up a church and school gymnasium, and Huckabee managed to get 400 people to come to the Great Wolf Lodge Hotel reception area.
In many areas across the country Clinton, despite her low delegate count in the last few weeks, has beaten Barack Obama by at least 10% in non-official polling. In Ohio however, their roles seem to be switched with Obama on top by far. The number of volunteers of both Obama and Clinton campaigns here in Ohio is unprecedented. If you have a phone hookup you already know what I mean, as many Springboro citizens are receiving three of four calls a week encouraging them to vote for a particular candidate.
Obama has also managed to get young voters off of their videogames and into the polls. A stunning number of voters under the age of 21 have been participating in the elections this year some even volunteering for campaigns. I drove past a university and saw several young students holding up signs in the freezing weather with such messages as “honk for Obama” on them.
Annye Driscoll, pictured at the Nutter Center during the Obama Rally on the front page of the Dayton Daily News said “it’s all very exciting that this is happening during my first year that I can vote.”
Anne Koppen shared her sentiments in this statement, “I thought it was a pretty cool experience to go see such a political figure especially since this my first time voting in a presidential election.”
With the March 4 election just around the corner, candidates and their volunteers are parading around both Ohio and Texas to scrape up any last-minute votes they can. Many political annalists suggest that if Obama wins these next two states it will be a knock-out blow to Hillary’s campaign. Some suggest his wins already have been such a blow, and that he has so much momentum that not even John McCain, future Republican Nominee for President has a chance of stopping him.
"I am in this fight for you to give a voice to you, to champion your cause," Obama said. "But I can't do it by myself."
Regardless of the outcome, this “candidate of change” has had a tremendous effect upon the voting behavior and interest in politics of young people across the nation. Teens who were once thinking that their vote did not matter are now rushing to the polls with the attitude that if they don’t vote, their candidate might not win.