Bowling Green State U. Democrats Crowd Pub To Support Obama

This story was written by Hannah Sparling, The BG News

At 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Bowling Green State University seniorKyle Mondy called the election in favor of Sen. Barack Obama. He was right.

Mondy predicted the results from the Black Swamp Pub, where about 100 people gathered to watch the results of the election as they came in. The event was put on by the political science department and Pi Sigma Alpha, the honors fraternity at the University for which Mondy is treasurer.

At 11 p.m. when Mondy's prediction came true the Pub erupted in cheers. Senior Ronald Collier, a member of the College Democrats, started jumping up and down screaming, "We won! We won!"

"All the years my grandmother told me stories about how oppressive the South was have been erased," Collier said.

The crowd at the pub was made up mostly of Obama supporters. They gathered around TV's and cheered loudly each time he was predicted to win a state. When Sen. John McCain was awarded a state there was either silence or small bursts of booing.

Obama supporters at the event started out the evening very confident in their candidate.

"Obama will win the presidency, period," Collier said.

"It's looking good so far," said senior Josh Schusterman, an Obama supporter. "I really think the winds of change are blowing in this country."

Junior Elyse Faulk, vice-president of the College Democrats, spent her Tuesday campaigning door-to-door for Obama. She said she was confident in a victory simply based on the reactions of the people she talked to.

"It may be close, but he'll come out on top," Faulk said.

There were some McCain supporters in the crowd, but they were much fewer in numbers, and also less confident.

Junior Nick Derkson was one McCain supporter present. He compared the experience of trying to find other McCain supporters in the room to that of "finding a needle in a haystack."

Derkson said he wasn't ready to give up, but felt like McCain was probably going to lose.

Regardless of which candidate they supported, students in the Pub last night were very excited about the election, which is new for a generation generally known for its political apathy.

Mondy said some of the excitement is based on the fact that either way this election went it would be historic. Either the U.S. would have its first African American president or first woman vice-president.

Another reason for the increased activism is people are simply tired of the economic and foreign policy positions of president George W. Bush, Mondy said.

"There is a lot of energy as a result of having eight years of President Bush," Mondy said. "A lot of people are just really excited and they're ready for something different."