On Saturday, approximately 20 members of AU's Students for Barack Obama traveled to Florence, S.C., to lend their support to the senator's campaign. More students from AU traveled to South Carolina than any other school in the District, according to Dave Simnick, co-director of AU's chapter of Students for Barack Obama.
"It's tough to get college students to give up their Friday and Saturday nights to sleeping on an auditorium floor and working long days, but it was amazing how many people got involved," said Simnick, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs.
The volunteers spent the weekend canvassing throughout the town, passing out information about Obama and the issues he represents. The group estimates it visited more than 1,500 homes over the two-day period.
"It was a crazy experience," Simnick said. "One man came to the door with a shotgun, another little girl said that her daddy was in jail, but her mom could speak with us. We reached out to so many different people in so many different situations."
An estimated 300 members from other chapters of Students for Barack Obama joined the AU students in South Carolina. There are approximately 500 chapters of Students for Barack Obama at schools around the country.
Political experts say student involvement, like the work done by members of Students for Barack Obama, could make the difference in Obama's campaign.
"I don't know yet what students' influence will be on the campaign or outcome because it's too early to tell who will be the nominees, how many serious candidates we'll have and what the political climate will be," said Curtis Gans, director of AU's Center for the Study of the American Electorate and the Center for Democracy and Election Management.
Students will be more important than in the 2000 election but not as important as in the 2004 campaign, he said.
Student involvement is making a difference in the campaign, said David Isaacson, a freshman in the Kogod School of Business.
"I saw [Barack Obama] speak when he was in D.C. a few weeks ago, and it really made me want to get involved," he said. "I feel like everyone else who saw him speak - everyone who had a chance to feel involved - felt the same way."
Jacob Shelly, co-director of the AU chapter of Students for Barack Obama and an editorial page columnist for The Eagle, said the group gets people involved with the campaign.
"And once they get involved, they feel like they are a part of it and they begin to not only be convinced of Obama's issues, but to convince others as well. The energy is contagious," he said.
Obama is not the only candidate to tap into the student population. Each of the presidential candidates, Democrat and Republican, have thousands of supporters on online social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook, according to the Web site techPresident.com.
However, according to the Web site, Obama leads the other candidates by thousands of supporters on each Web site. For example, on Facebook, Obama has 150,744 supporters, while Hillary Clinton has 45,331.
