<p>Schmoomcgoo-congrats on working for the Obama campaign. this is a very important political year, as evidenced by the amazing turnout at Obama’s events at or near EVERY other college campus. </p>
<p>I am stunned that ND is so VERY different from every other campaign stop, truly depressing in my opinion. Students and young people, an entire generation of voters are inspired and enthused by Obama, but not domers?</p>
<p>Disappointing…</p>
<p>Why disappointing?</p>
<p>Maybe ND students are thinking for themselves, rather than behaving like sheep who assume that young people must support Obama because the media is in love with him.
Maybe they see past the hype, and aren’t impressed by Obama’s policies, which aren’t really much different from the standard liberal Democratic platform.
Maybe they already voted or are planning to vote absentee ballot in their home states’ primaries.
Maybe, like many in the general electorate, they aren’t enthused or inspired by ANY of the presidential candidates, and have decided to spend this evening finishing up research papers or projects instead of wasting several hours at a pep rally across town.</p>
<p>Have to agree that “disappointing” is an odd word. . . my ND daughter is very politically aware but not at all swept up in the Obama hype. I think it might be very much to ND’s credit that it “is so VERY different from every other campaign stop.”</p>
<p>claremarie-disappointing,
Because the Observer did not even mention that a nearby Obama rally was scheduled for tonight. Certainly, there are SOME students who are interested?</p>
<p>I understand the overall conservative nature of the ND campus, but certainly the student body is interested (even if they are not supporting) this historic Presidential campaign. Large groups, of students at EVERY other campus have been enriched and inspired by Obama.</p>
<p>I do believe Domer’s are unusually politically apathetic, especially,if the school newspaper is any reflection of theviews of the student body.</p>
<p>Sadly,my S is no different…and, that is immensely disappointing !!!</p>
<p>I keep reminding him there IS A WAR GOING ON…</p>
<p>Apathy is always disappointing. Our current administration has disillusioned so many, that is will take a long time before anyone can truly trust the government again. If Obama brings hope and optimism to so many, it has to be a good thing.</p>
<p>Chaz4, and others,you can watch the Washington High School event live at this link:
[WSBT</a> South Bend - Your Local News Leader | Live Streaming](<a href=“http://www.wsbt.com/livestreaming]WSBT”>http://www.wsbt.com/livestreaming)</p>
<p>How much do students rely on The Observer to tell them what is going on around campus and in town?
Don’t students who would have been interested in attending this event have access to multiple (mostly electronic) sources of information about it?</p>
<p>Very happy to report that when Barack asked the packed gym how many Notre Dame students were in the audience
many, many, MANY hands went up-
looked like more than one third of the people!</p>
<p>Maybe Notre Dame students are intelligent enough to see through the empty, populist message of a young hotshot politician. Maybe they realize that “change” does not come from impractical national programs but from setting a Christian example. Maybe they have taken notice that Obama’s stance on abortion directly contradicts Catholic teaching on the dignity of life. (Of course, so does the Republican stance towards the death penalty).</p>
<p>You can get out your social justice handbooks on me if you want, but the end-game of God’s coming Kingdom is not likely to come in the form of commune-style health care or abortion on demand. Maybe Notre Dame students realize that.</p>
<p>Or maybe not - they probably just didn’t realize what was going on.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not even on campus anymore, but I knew about the Obama rally; a couple of my friends still at ND were planning on going. I would say the Observer is out of touch with most things going on on campus, and during my time at ND, I never used it to plan my activities. That said, the College Democrats are very weak at Notre Dame (at least up until last year when I graduated) and have a smaller membership and less passionate leadership than the College Republicans. </p>
<p>But I don’t think it’s true that there’s not tremendous support for Obama at Notre Dame. After all, a huge number of ND students are from Chicago, as is Senator Obama! During the primary season, CHicago’s democrats and independents overwhelmingly supported Obama; I think HRC received only 27% in the democratic primary. Chicago newspapers even commented that many republicans went out for the democratic primary to support their hometown hero. While I’ve yet to see any substantial political movement at Notre Dame (except after the Vagina Monologues was banned), I will say that because of the huge CHicago contingent at Notre Dame, Obama-supporters are probably well-represented. In fact, like most college students, I’m willing to bet that the large majority of ND students votedvia absentee ballots from their home states. Maybe the Obama campaign wanted to hone in on voters in the South Bend community who would be voting in the INDIANA primary because 1) the venue was a small high school gym and college students have traditionally swarmed his rallies with high enthusiam (many Obama rallies have been in excess of 20,000 people and I doubt Washington HS’s gym holds that many people) and 2) many ND students have most likely already supported their candidate in an earlier primary. </p>
<p>Off topic: it’s interesting coming from Notre Dame, which many regard as politically apathetic–to the very politically engaged campus of the University of Chicago. Without much effort, I was able to learn a ton about all of the candidates, including the more obscure ones on the red side. While this campus definitely has an Obama preference (Michelle OBama is VP of the medical center, Barack used to teach law here), it’s refreshing to see so many people interested and passionate about the political process. </p>
<p>P.S. Irish_hopeful may call it an “empty, populist message of a young hotshot politician”, but others call it an organic, honest message that has the power to transform the world. And as far as Senator Obama being a hot shot politician too wet behind the ears to govern, I wonder if JFK’s critics thought the same about him in the 60s. Irishhopeful, please explain what you mean by “setting a Christian example” and how that can bring health care to millions of uninsured people, bring jobs back to the U.S., improve the economy…etc? Is George W. setting a Christian example?</p>
<p>Perhaps “setting a Christian example” means not supporting partial birth abortion.
Perhaps “setting a Christian example” means not supporting an organization that teaches that the US purposely created the AIDS virus to kill African
Americans?
What do you think?</p>
<p>Obama has “the power to transform the world”? WOW!!</p>
<p>PrincessND, thank you for your perspective.</p>
<p>Wow. First time I’ve had a reason to post on the ND board! First off, I must thank SouthJerseyChessMom for clueing me in on this event. She told me about it Tuesday night, and since Wednesday was my birthday, I decided to take a road trip (I’m from the northern Chicago ‘burbs). </p>
<p>Original plan was to leave early enough to drive to South Bend when the offices opened Wednesday morning, snatch a ticket, head up to Saugutuck, MI to do some birthday shopping, then head back to South Bend for the speech, which wasn’t to begin until 10PM. On my way out of Chicago, I called the South Bend Democrats office, and they told me no tickets were left, but that there would be a ‘stand-by’ line for those with no tickets; we would be taken to an auditorium equipped with a live feed, but if room allowed after all ticketed people arrived, we would be let in the gym. So I went up to Saugatuck first, did some shopping, then arrived in South Bend around 3:30PM; lines were already forming for ticketed people, so I headed over to a grocery store, grabbed a few snacks, and headed back to the high school. I ended up being 5th in the stand-by line at 4PM. </p>
<p>Luckily it was a beautiful day, and people were pumped up, chatty, and friendly. Initially they were to begin letting ticketed people in around 8PM, but they began around 7:15. Around 8:15, they escorted us in the stand-by line to the auditorium. The live feed was already going, and it was like being at a comedy club. No one in the gym knew the cameras were on, and it was like watching a hidden camera on total strangers, only they weren’t all total strangers. People in the overflow room would see people they knew in the gym doing stupid stuff. Some of the major network anchors and analysts gave us some good laughs (one CNN reporter in particular would not stop touching up her make-up or trying to poof her perfectly straight hair) – again, they did not know they had a captive audience. </p>
<p>Four ND guys sat in the row behind me, and we talked with them a little bit. I asked why this wasn’t held at ND, and they assumed it was because many students there aren’t necessarily registered to vote in IN, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to speak there. I told them about my daughter who was registered in Illinois, but changed her registration to Pennsylvania in January so she could vote there (where she attends the same college as SouthJerseyChessMom’s daughter). They seemed very surprised to learn this was a possibility, so I encouraged them to find out what Indiana’s voter registration requirements were before the November elections. But they seemed bummed they couldn’t vote in Indiana. But it made me wonder why Obama’s camp didn’t schedule some tables at Notre Dame in order to change voter registrations for out-of-state students who hadn’t already voted absentee in their own home states. The guys did speculate that they thought Obama might show up on the ND campus this morning for some pick-up basketball. I wonder if that happened, but it could be the better campaign move for a campus of politically ambivalent students. The guys also suggested it might not have been as feasible for him to fill up the gym at ND, whereas, there was no problem filling the gym up at the high school. As an aside, as I was leaving, someone said Hillary (not Bill) was coming to the high school this Saturday. </p>
<p>About 9:15PM, we got the good news that they were going to start escorting us into the gym by groups of ten. So we were the first group to go in – it was standing room only, but I’d say I was about 30 feet from the small stage where he spoke from. I didn’t have full view of him because he would walk back and forth, and sometimes a taller head in front of me would block my view. By the end of the night I had sweat running down my back – it was really warm in there for those of us standing the whole time, but I didn’t complain for a second. I was just so happy to have heard him speak. During the times when I couldn’t see his face, I would look around the crowd in the gym, and THAT was the true story there last night. Looking at people whose faces displayed an attitude of gratitude and hope for what this man is trying to do for them. I did feel like I was part of history being made.</p>
<p>Yes, when he did greet the crowd, he did ask how many Notre Dame students were present, and there were a LOT (I know there were students from Goshen College, too).</p>
<p>I left the high school so pumped up that I chose not to stay overnight in South Bend (I had taken stuff with me in case I needed to get a hotel room), and drove home, arriving here just after 1AM (my time – I had a time change between the two locations), and felt the day was magical.</p>
<p>oh endgame,
Senator Obama is a member of a church where 1 pastor believes some pretty ludicrous things. I’m pretty sure most can draw up a list of things we don’t agree with the Catholic Church about…but we’re still followers. And it’s an oversimplification to say that anyone “supports” any kind of abortion. Being in favor of a woman’s right to her own reproductive health does not mean that you believe that abortion is a desirable event. In fact, I bet that if the current administration didn’t do away with so many social programs that help distraught pregnant women, most of them wouldn’t want an abortion.</p>
<p>Just got home and looked for Teriwtt’s private message, and delighted to see that she updated on this site. Funny how a simple side comment in a PM, ended up with Teriwtt writing that wonderful description of the Obama Rally.</p>
<p>So, very glad you got in Teri- your feet must have been killing you? your back?</p>
<p>Perhaps, the excitement of witnessing history made you oblivious to any discomfort!</p>
<p>Thank you so much for posting on the ND thread, and sharing with others, especially about the Notre Dame students you met. (sorry to say my son was not part of that group, VERY sorry to admit this)</p>
<p>And PRINCESSND, thank you for posting here and sharing your views about your experiences at ND, and especially how it contrasts with your experiences at Univ of Chicago.</p>
<p>These updates are making me SMILE- here in South Jersey.</p>
<p>Teri- I watched the event live last night-so I felt as though I was there, too.
Funny how we overlapped during the Muhlenberg event and now this- technology- gotta love it :)</p>
<p>SouthJerseyChessMom - this might be one of those ‘you had to be there’ stories, but we were almost rolling on the floor laughing.</p>
<p>About ten minutes before we were taken inside the overflow room from outside, this guy recognized the girl and mom standing in front of me and stopped to say hi. As they continued to talk, he joked about ‘being with them’ in relation to the line, and before too long, the volunteers were leading us into the building, ten at a time. So he (and his girlfriend) were in the first group, despite having just arrived (no one standing in our line behind me said anything). The volunteer staff tried to keep our group of ten together through the security and metal detectors, but at some point we looked back and saw he wasn’t following us to the overflow room. We started joking that he must have snuck into one of the security lines for people who were going directly into the gym (this was past the point where you had to show a ticket). </p>
<p>So we get into the overflow room (minus this guy and his girlfriend), and as I said earlier, we had a live camera feed from the gym, and before too long, we saw this guy and his girlfriend, sitting in the bleachers right behind Obama’s stage, in the group that would be on camera. We kind of got rankled that he’d beaten the system and was in the gym, while we were in the overflow room, and the girl who knew him, who’d been standing in front of me decided to play a joke on him. She was able to get his cell phone number from her brother, and the Notre Dame guys behind us were willing accomplices. She blocked her phone number and the guys placed several calls to him, acting official, demanding he remove himself from the bleachers and report to security personnel immediately for entering the gym without a ticket. We could see every facial expression and body move he made when he would answer the phone and talk with whoever called. You could tell he was nervous as all get out; a couple of times he picked up his jacket as if he was going to leave, but then would stay. We’d watch him looking around as if trying to figure out who was watching him. Sometimes when one of these guys would be on the phone with him, someone would walk in front of the camera that was providing the live feed, and we’d all start yelling at the screen (as if they could hear us?!?) for them to move because we couldn’t watch the guy’s reactions. Between phone calls, he’d start playing with his cell phone, we assumed trying to figure out some way to override the blocked call feature so he could see who called. After 20 minutes or so of messing with him, one of the guys called him back and said, “Sir, we’ve asked you to leave due to your lack of ticket. If you insist you have a ticket by your staying, hold that ticket up over your head and wave it.” At some point prior to this, he’d asked to borrow a ticket from one of the guys he was sitting around (we think someone else he knew, or made friends with in the meantime) in case security really came up to him and challenged him. So sure enough, he starts holding up the ticket over his head and waving it. He has no idea who he’s waving it to, but he’s doing it. Our sides were splitting we were laughing so hard. He really thought he was going to get busted. Like I said, it was like watching people on hidden camera – they don’t know it’s there, you can call them and make comments about things going on around them, and they’re freaking out. </p>
<p>At one point the guy got up to go to the bathroom, so the girl who knew him found him in one of the hallways and told him it was all a joke. He laughed, but admitted to being a bit spooked at the beginning. Oh well, those of us in the auditorium knew what he’d done and felt the practical joke was warranted. Plus, it was good entertainment for a while. </p>
<p>So that is my non-Obama report of my evening in South Bend and the fun we had with Notre Dame students.</p>
<p>Teriwtt, that is hilarious! I’ve had a rough day and this story made me smile. </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Hahahah very very funny teriwtt!</p>
<p>Princessnd- you’re joking right? Blaming Bush for abortions? Then, since the rate of abortions has decreased does that mean you should credit Bush? Just ridiculous.
Also, I have been in many different churches over the years - Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, non-denominational Christian - and I have never, ever heard a rascist or anti-semitic word - either spoken or implied. If you have heard such things, and remained, then shame on you.
Obama stayed in this church for 20 years - how could he not have known what his spiritual advisor believed.</p>