Click here for audio and a complete transcript of the conference call.
President Barack Obama hosted a conference call Monday with student media outlets across the county, including North by Northwestern, in an apparent attempt to rouse young Democratic voters in the buildup to the November midterm elections.
Obama acknowledged that the call was intended in part to reignite political fervor that motivated college students to vote for him in 2008. “I think a lot of people felt that our campaign gave them a vehicle to get engaged and involved in shaping the direction of this country over the long term,” he said. In the interim period between 2008 and 2010, “naturally, some of the excitement and enthusiasm started to drain away.”
The White House pegged the 30-minute conference call as an opportunity for Obama to “discuss the steps his administration has taken to address the concerns and issues important to young Americans.”
Throughout the talk, Obama balanced policy rhetoric with an idealism that contained echoes of the 2008 election campaign. “Don’t let anybody tell you that somehow your dreams are going to be constrained going forward,” he said. “You guys are going to drive the future success of the United States.”
And as the midterm elections approach, the White House is moving to court young voters again. Obama will travel to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a political rally Tuesday.
According to an August Pew Research Center poll, 18- to 19-year-old voters have demonstrated significantly less engagement in this year’s elections. Only 23 percent professed having “high” engagement in the campaign, compared to levels nearly twice as high for older citizens.
Obama also used the call to lay out objectives for changes to higher education policy. “We have fallen behind. In a single generation, we have fallen from 1st to 12th in college graduation rates,” he said. “The single most important step we can take is to make sure that every young person gets the best education possible.”
Obama didn’t finish the call without hitting his signature theme: the economy. Within the span of the conversation, Obama used a form of the word “economy” twelve times and the word “money” six times. He referred to his pending $30 billion small business lending bill on numerous occasions, and signed the bill about an hour after the phone call ended.
In the middle of a response to one of the four student questions asked, Obama issued a stern call to vote. “You can’t sit it out,” he said. “You can’t suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we’ve got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.”