Campus Chronicle

Issue date: 9/15/08 Section: Campus Life

The 2008 Presidential Election has increasingly become a media circus and with Election Day drawing closer, the campaign trail's terrain is more and more rocky. In recent months, Democratic nominee Barack Obama has led voter polls by single digit percentages, but lately his Republican adversary has begun to lessen these margins. These national polls include voters of all ages, races, genders, social and educational backgrounds.
Barack Obama is the 47- year- old Illinois junior senator who rose from humble origins and meager surroundings to become a prominent politician. He was raised by a single mother and later by his maternal grandparents. The Harvard graduate spent years helping improve living and working conditions in inner city neighborhoods in Chicago as a community organizer. Obama realized that in order to enact necessary changes on a local level, laws must be reformed. This led him to run for the Illinois state senate then to the United States senate. All of which leads up to his current position of Democratic candidate in the 2008 Presidential Election.
His opponent, 72- year- old John McCain ascends from a family of naval officers which includes his father and grandfather. The retired Navy captain graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy in 1958, after which he served six years in the Vietnam War. After retirement in 1981, he planned to run for Congress and became a United States senator in 1987. McCain attempted to gain the Republican Party's nomination for presidency in 2000, but lost to George W. Bush. With the statement "I'm not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things," McCain announced his intentions to run for the up-coming Presidential Election.
Being that Alcorn State University is an HBCU (Historically Black College or University); most of its student body is black. Many of them are between the ages of 18 and 25 and come from working class families. In a campus survey I conducted, 9 out of 10 students say they are registered to vote. And all of the registered voters said they will vote for Senator Obama. On the surface, one might assume this is due to his race but it may be more than that.
Obama comes from a working class family where he was raised by a single mother who turned to forms of government assistance to sustain her family. Households across America are experiencing the same thing. This allows him to identify himself with many who share the same background. Unfortunately for him, Senator McCain is unable to connect himself with this group of voters through his upbringing.

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