{"id":443,"date":"2008-09-22T19:31:05","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T00:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/masonvotes.gmu.edu\/blog\/?p=443"},"modified":"2008-09-26T12:58:16","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T17:58:16","slug":"michelle-obama-urges-youth-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/22\/michelle-obama-urges-youth-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Obama Urges Youth to Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a conference call with student journalists today, Michelle Obama touted the importance of the youth vote to this fall\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung people can make a huge difference,\u201d said Obama, \u201cNo matter who they are voting for, we need young people to register to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2000, only 36 percent of registered voters age 18-24 voted in the presidential election. That number only increased to 47 percent in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we have got to turn this trend around and I think we are doing that. Young folks, as well as anyone, know why this matters,\u201d Obama said. \u201cWe need all the young people we have met to stay involved and to really stay focused. Young people\u2026will be dealing with the effects of this election for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama said her husband\u2019s most important agendas are the economy, healthcare, ending the war in Iraq \u201cresponsibly\u201d and investing in schools and renewable energy. She cautioned however, against rash optimism regarding the capabilities the next president will have to make sweeping changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next president, whoever it will be, will be inheriting a crisis at home and abroad,\u201d she said. \u201cThe next president can lead us in a different direction\u2026or the next president could not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, Obama stressed the impact her husband\u2019s educational platforms will have on current and future students. Drawing on her experience as a mother, she reminded the gathered journalists that she and her husband will have to prepare for the personal debt of their own children\u2019s higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarack and I just paid down our student loans,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In an effort to distinguish her husband\u2019s platform from that of his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain, Obama stressed Barack\u2019s proposed legislation to increase Pell Grants to $5,100 and his continued commitment to keeping it at \u201cpace with rising costs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama also promoted the new website www.voteforchange.com<\/a>, a product of the Obama campaign. It assists potential voters by allowing them to register to vote, find out if they are already registered, register for an absentee ballot, find the nearest polling location and other practical voting information.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note:<\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Although www.voteforchange.com<\/a> is paid for by Obama\u2019s presidential campaign, the editors of Mason Votes feel that its non-partisan information is important enough to be featured by our website. We will be linking it from our website. Mason Votes editors have contacted the campaigns of McCain, Cynthia McKinney, Bob Barr and Ralph Nader in search of similar sites. Only Nader\u2019s campaign provided a similar site, www.votersunite.com<\/a>, which will also be linked from our website.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a conference call with student journalists today, Michelle Obama touted the importance of the youth vote to this fall\u2019s presidential election. \u201cYoung people can make a huge difference,\u201d said Obama, \u201cNo matter who they are voting for, we need young people to register to vote.\u201d In 2000, only 36 percent of registered voters age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[63],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masonvotes.masonstudentmedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}