College students have the ability to be the margin of victory for the 2008 election, which is why ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” television star Kate Walsh was campaigning for Sen. Barack Obama in the Philadelphia area last Saturday, Sept. 13.
Walsh visited Lehigh University, Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania to register students to vote. She also attended a women’s event in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where she interviewed with The Loquitur about the importance of college students’ votes in the upcoming election.
“People think that college voters are apathetic or they just don’t care; that they are too involved in their partying and that they don’t have a political opinion, and that’s a fallacy,” Walsh said.
Growing up, Walsh was from a working class family and obtained her first job in fast food at the age of 14. Most of Walsh’s adult years she did not even have health care and got her annual physicals from Planned Parenthood, an inexpensive or even free clinic for women.
“I borrowed all the money in the world to go to college; and I only finished paying off my student loans three years ago at 37-years-old because I got on “Grey’s Anatomy,” Walsh said.
Walsh expressed more than once that she was lucky to be able to live the American dream and that “we should all have that.” Walsh feels that Obama can do this for America because “Democrat, Republican, independent [aside] he is progressive.”
“I think they [college students] see this is the future, this is their county and they have the ability to design their future.”
Walsh asks students to take 10 minutes in the evening to look online, turn on the news and learn about what is going on in the world. She asks students to take time to learn about Obama’s issues compared to Sen. John McCain’s issues.
“This [election] isn’t about whose the vice president candidate for the Republican Party but it’s really about how they vote, where their issues are and where their hearts are,” Walsh said.
Walsh reiterates the importance of college students’ votes especially in a time of a “failed economy, disastrous housing crisis and war costing billions of dollars.”
“I just hope that people realize how critical it is and that it can’t wait another four years, another eight years,” Walsh said.
“Every vote truly does count. In the primaries we were literally counting heads and we saw how close it was.”
