President Obama appeared at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa Tuesday afternoon to urge young voters to give him another chance.
Recent polling shows the President, who won 66 percent of the under 30 vote in 2008, leading Romney with young voters by a less impressive 48-39 margin.
The president told the students and others at the rally that he is running for a second term to ensure that young people get good-paying jobs, to make it easier for young people to pay off their student loan debts, to move Americans off oil and to ensure that they have health care.
“That’s what the last four years has been about; that’s what this campaign has been about,” Obama said. The president’s speech nowhere mentioned last month’s non-seasonally adjusted 12.7 percent youth unemployment rate, nor the difficulties that college graduates have finding jobs. Nor was any mention made about the boondoggles or crony capitalist ventures such as Solyndra that the Obama administration engaged in the name of creating “green jobs.”
“They are going to say that ‘It’s all Obama’s fault, and that change is naïve,” Obama said. “What they are hoping is that by telling you these things you will get discouraged and stay home this time.
“But you can’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”
The President told the young people that accomplishing the sort of change they voted for will not take one term to accomplish – or even one presidency.
“We are going to get there because I believe in you,” Obama said.
Obama went on to tout how his administration doubled grant aid for millions of students and how it had won the fight to keep student loans interest rates from doubling for 7 million Americans among other student-aid related plans.
Yet nowhere mentioned was the role that such increases have played in the runaway cost of a college education.
“We made sure that women could get access to free health care like mammograms and contraception,” Obama said, noting the HHS Mandate that a federal judge placed an injunction on because of its threat to religious freedom. “Your vote made that happen. You made that change.
“Your voices matter more than they ever have before.”
Obama sought to raise the class envy and fear cards by telling the students that tax cuts for the top 1 percent means having to cut student financial aid.
“Our economic strength doesn’t come from the top down,” Obama said. “It comes from student and workers … that’s how we build an economy.”
The President touched on foreign policy, saying his administration caught bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq – a major reason for young people voting for him in 2008 – and slammed Mitt Romney for having no vision for getting out of Afghanistn.
He concluded by returning to the theme of change from the last election, saying that young people have a chance to make a difference in November.