It’s long been a campuswide truism that Northwestern studentsjust don’t care about politics. But one candidate vying to be theDemocrats’ U.S. Senate nominee in Illinois has attracted a band offollowers at Northwestern working to prove that stereotypewrong.
With the Illinois primary election less than 24 hours away, NUStudents for Barack Obama is mobilizing for one last hurrah beforestudents head to the polls Tuesday.
“I’m tired of hearing this line about how Northwestern studentsare politically apathetic and don’t want to get involved,” saidChristopher Kriva, a Medill sophomore and co-chairman of NUStudents for Obama. “I don’t believe that, and I think we’reproving that wrong right now.”
A professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Obama hasmanaged to tap a vast resource among young voters. At NU, Studentsfor Obama claims over 70 members committed to volunteering for thecandidate, a state senator who represents Chicago’s South Side.
The group has been busying itself with the standard proceduresof any campaign: distributing literature, making phone calls,putting up signs and posters.
In the last week, however, members of the group have gone allout, Kriva said.
“(Last Monday) afternoon we ran a phone bank, where we had Ithink five or six people who came just to make phone calls to NUstudents, telling them about Barack, reminding them to vote,” Krivasaid.
On primary day, Kriva said student supporters plans to make morecalls, drive voters to and from voting locations and volunteer atpolling precincts. Late last week, members of the group alsopainted The Rock.
“We’ve got a lot of people signed up to ‘Barack therock,’I guess you could say,” Kriva said. “I really think that ourgroup is going to put us over the top and really deliver thiselection to Barack.”
Recent polls suggest that Obama is the clear frontrunner amongthe seven Democrats vying to be the party’s nominee to fill theU.S. Senate seat being vacated by Peter Fitzgerald, a Republicanwho is retiring.
A March 9 poll by The Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV found 33percent of voters support Obama, while State Comptroller Dan Hynescame in a distant second with 19 percent. One-time frontrunnerBlair Hull, who has poured millions of dollars of his own moneyinto his campaign, trailed with 16 percent, according to the poll,which had a margin of error of plus or minus four percentagepoints.
Students for Obama was started in October-long before thestate senator’s rise from obscurity. It’s two founding members,Kriva and Weinberg senior Madhuri Kommareddi, decided to start thegroup when they were both interns at Obama’s campaignheadquarters.
“We wanted to move (the campaign) into Evanston, which is one ofour key areas,” said Kommareddi, who took Winter Quarter off towork for Obama’s campaign full time. “So we started a listserv andstarted emailing interns, and it just started growing fromthere.”
A spokeswoman for Gery Chico, the former Chicago Board ofEducation president who also is running for the U.S. Senatenomination but has trailed in recent polls, has said about a dozenNU students have interned for the campaign. Few of the other fiveDemocratic candidates, however, have been able to find similarsupport among college students, especially at NU.
Members of the Obama group agreed that the combination ofObama’s progressive policy proposals, his active courtship of youngvoters and his charm have made him popular among collegestudents.
“After you get passed everything he’s done as a politician andyou get to meet him and see him speak, you see he’s so genuine andpassionate about what he believes in,” said Weinberg freshman EmilyKoches, who has interned for Obama since the early days of hiscampaign. “Young people admire that because most politicians aren’tgoing to be honest about that.”
The Obama campaign-perhaps more so than itscompetitors-has made an active effort to woo younger voters,said Lauren Kidwell, Obama’s campus coordinator who is also asenior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Theeffort is paying off at colleges like NU, which has the largestStudents for Obama chapter among the nine or so others statewide,she said.
“The Northwestern chapter has been one of our most activechapters,” Kidwell said.
