Barack Obama told thousands of screaming, cheering IU students Wednesday night that he needs their vote in Tuesday’s primary election.
In a rally at Assembly Hall that was one part Hoosier Hysteria, one part rock concert and one part political theater, the Democratic presidential candidate implored his audience to cast their ballots early before they skip town for IU’s summer recess.
“I need every Indiana student to vote for me,” he said.
And his audience could hardly have been more receptive. The 13,000-strong crowd was raucous. The cheers and screams of students in the stands were deafening as Obama took the stage, and at several points their roar of approval drowned out the senator’s words entirely.
Sophomore Valerie Banakis said she went into Assembly Hall a skeptic, but Obama was so compelling she came out a believer.
The massive turnout was greater than the number who came to see Sen. Hillary Clinton last week and former President Bill Clinton earlier this month combined.
Over the next several days, the Clintons have an intense schedule of campaign rallies and town hall meetings across Indiana.
Despite the throngs of adoring students, much of Obama’s speech was nearly identical to the one he’s been giving across Indiana since his first appearance in Plainfield, Ind., in March.
He began by describing the nation’s problems – from health care to global warming to the war in Iraq - and told the crowd he was compelled by the “fierce urgency of now” to run for president and attempt to remedy these issues.
Perhaps the Illinois senator’s biggest applause line was his proclamation, “It’s now time to make college more affordable.”
Obama’s plan involves giving an annual $4,000 tuition credit to every college student. In order to qualify for the money, students would have to perform community service.
In an effort to “look past” the Democratic primary, the senator said his differences with Clinton are minimal and instead focused on attacking John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. He lambasted McCain as offering “four more years of George W. Bush” and criticized the Arizona senator’s fiscal policy and his pledge not to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
Obama also came down on a proposal by McCain and Clinton to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax, which is an effort to take some of the pressure of rising gas prices off of American consumers.
He said the exploding gas prices are a “serious problem that requires a serious solution.”
Removing the gas tax for three months in the summer, as McCain suggests, would save about 30 cents a day for a grand total of $28, Obama said.
“You can’t even buy a cup of coffee at 7-11 for 30 cents a day,” he said.
In a new addition to his stump speech, Obama discussed the hardships he endured as a child. He described being born to a teenage mother and abandoned by his father at an early age. In an effort to combat criticism that he is elitist, he painted himself and his wife Michelle Obama as two people who had to struggle and work hard to get where they are today.
“My story, Michelle’s story, wouldn’t be possible anywhere but the United States of America,” he said.
Most in the throngs of IU students and community members who showed up to see the Obama were already proud supporters.
Law student Rochelle Warren said she has read both of Obama’s books and likes his views on the world and his policies.
But some weren’t so impressed.
Sophomore Matthew Spence, who described himself as a Republican, said that while he appreciated Obama’s stance on ridding Washington of undue special-interest influence, “I think it’s the same speech that we’ve been hearing from politicians for 100 years.”
