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The Daily OrangeOne Year Later
A year after President Obama was elected, students weigh in on the effect of Obamamania
By Sarah Jane Capper
Posted: 11/4/09, 2:30 AM EST Section: Feature
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"It was like the day after a sporting event when you go out wearing your team's jersey," said O'Donnell, a sophomore broadcast journalism and political science major.
The Syracuse University campus erupted in celebration the night Obama was elected. Several hundred students packed the Quad, shouting and chanting. Students partied in dorms. Drivers honked their horns as they drove through campus.
Looking back, O'Donnell said he was swept away by Obama-mania, especially because he had the opportunity to hear Obama speak and shake his hand in 2007.
"One year later, the glimmer has worn off a little bit," he said.
A year after Obama's election, SU students and faculty have a variety of opinions about his time in office. Many still support him and are proud that he is president, but much of their enthusiasm has faded.
Obama sparked the imagination of young people, said Thomas Raven, a political science professor at SU who studies American politics. Like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, Obama can deliver a speech in a football stadium and make audience members feel like he's speaking directly to them, Raven said.
Across party and ethnic lines, college-age voters supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Sixty-eight percent of voters ages 18 to 29 cast their ballots for Obama, according to CIRCLE, a nonpartisan group affiliated with Tufts University that studies the civic and political engagement of young people.
"Students viewed McCain as their grandpa, and Obama as their young cool uncle," Raven said.
Obama enthusiasm on campus didn't last forever, though. Raven said he taught a class on Congress last spring and noticed that students who had been excited about the historical significance of the election quickly began to criticize Obama, particularly those students with more conservative leanings who had voted for him.
"Obama was able to initially pull people who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt," Raven said. "But the reality of politics and the reality of people's basic political interests is that they were only able to go with him so far."
When a president is elected by a large majority, like Obama was, people tend to support the new president because they feel it was the people's choice but eventually "snap back" to their original political convictions, Raven said. When candidates win by close races or pluralities, initial support isn't as great.
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