Josh Falcone – General Assignment Reporter –
President Barack Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election after a volatile campaign by both candidates.
Obama gained the needed electoral votes.
When accepting his party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in September, Obama attempted to court the youth vote which helped him win the 2008 election by promising to reform student-loans and to continue improving the job market.
Southern sudent and liberal studies major Samantha Johnson said she is happy to see Obama win a second term.
“I believe he is doing an excellent job as President and if Romney were to win then we’d be in shambles all over again,” she said. “This will give Obama another four years to finish what he started.”
Southern students Casey DeLorenzo and Rachael McCloskey also both said they were OK with four more years of the Obama administration.
“I think he knows what he’s doing,” McCloskey said.
But not everyone shares the same feeling.
Southern senior Matt Ursone said he doesn’t believe Obama’s re-election is what is good for the country.
“Obama promised a lot,” Ursone said, “when he was elected in 2008, and I don’t think he accomplished any inkling of what he promised.”
Ursone said that four years is plenty of time to turn the economy around like Obama pledged to do in 2008, and Ursone fears that with this second term, it will be more of the same from Obama.
“I feel like he makes all these promises like he did four years ago,” Ursone said.
Political science major Christian Spencer said that he believes that Obama had the time to better the country and he did not, and Spencer is unsure how to feel about another Obama term.
“I’m nervous,” Spencer said. “I don’t know what to expect from the Obama administration over the next four years.”
Spencer said he hopes that Obama can take care of the struggling economy and the rising national deficit in his second term.
Obama carried the youth vote in 2008 and then again this year, which was significant in his victory in both elections but according to a July Gallup poll, only 58 percent of registered voters in the 18-29 age bracket said they planned to vote in the 2012 election which was down from the 78 percent that said the same in the months before the 2008 election. Southern student Bob Smith was one of the registered voters who did not vote in this election.
Smith said that he did not personally care for either presidential candidate in this election.
“I feel like students are more aware that these two were more similar than they wanted to admit,” Smith said. “They are both moderates in their respected parties and will run the country that way.”
An important issue nonetheless around campus is Obama’s impact on college students.
“Hopefully tuition will go down or we will be able to get more aid,” said Josh Sumrell, a graduate intern for residence life. “I feel like he had a lot of adversity against him and had to prove himself. He spent most of his term defending the criticism and now he has a chance to do things like educational support and job oppurtunities that he might not have had the first time around.”
