2008 Woodie Awards
Letter: URI Students for Barack Obama look for support
Issue date: 10/25/07 Section: Editorial/Opinion
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10/25/07 - To the Cigar,
Students Rally Around Obama. As the 2008 election season heats up, students, like other voters across the country, are carefully weighing their presidential options.
Much like the rest of America, we are concerned about the issues that dominate the national debate, including Iraq and health care. We are also looking for a candidate who speaks to our particular concerns, who can talk with equal passion and insight about war and health care as they can about student loans and genocide. And most importantly, students are looking for a candidate who can talk about tomorrow as well as today.
On both measures, we have found our candidate in Barack Obama. At a college rally just before he declared his candidacy, Senator Obama reminded a packed room of students of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." He challenged students to "grab that arc" and to work to set America on the right path once more.
On campuses across the country, students have risen to Obama's challenge, building a grassroots movement of historic proportions to elect the president our country deserves. Sen. Obama knows that every student in this country should be able to attend college without worrying about graduating under a burden of crippling debt.
One indication of his commitment to students is the fact that the first bill he introduced in the U.S. Senate was legislation to expand the Pell Grant program that makes college more affordable for students in need of financial assistance. He has demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the issue of access to higher education in this country, and he has proposed to reform corrupt lending institutions that bankrupt too many students trying to get an education.
Obama has shown that he has the vision and the judgment to lead. Students are rallying behind him as the only candidate who opposed the war in Iraq from the start, before it was popular or politically expedient to do so.
Students Rally Around Obama. As the 2008 election season heats up, students, like other voters across the country, are carefully weighing their presidential options.
Much like the rest of America, we are concerned about the issues that dominate the national debate, including Iraq and health care. We are also looking for a candidate who speaks to our particular concerns, who can talk with equal passion and insight about war and health care as they can about student loans and genocide. And most importantly, students are looking for a candidate who can talk about tomorrow as well as today.
On both measures, we have found our candidate in Barack Obama. At a college rally just before he declared his candidacy, Senator Obama reminded a packed room of students of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words, that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." He challenged students to "grab that arc" and to work to set America on the right path once more.
On campuses across the country, students have risen to Obama's challenge, building a grassroots movement of historic proportions to elect the president our country deserves. Sen. Obama knows that every student in this country should be able to attend college without worrying about graduating under a burden of crippling debt.
One indication of his commitment to students is the fact that the first bill he introduced in the U.S. Senate was legislation to expand the Pell Grant program that makes college more affordable for students in need of financial assistance. He has demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the issue of access to higher education in this country, and he has proposed to reform corrupt lending institutions that bankrupt too many students trying to get an education.
Obama has shown that he has the vision and the judgment to lead. Students are rallying behind him as the only candidate who opposed the war in Iraq from the start, before it was popular or politically expedient to do so.