Gov., Kumar actor rally support for Obama

By Katrina Ballard and Vivian Ho

PUBLISHED by The Daily Free Press

Gov. Deval Patrick and actor Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle fame stumped around the Boston University campus yesterday, hoping to drum up youth support for presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.


Patrick urged more than 100 Obama campaign volunteers to spread the word about his presidential pick at a phone-banking training session last night at Morse Auditorium, while Penn's afternoon stop at BU Central drew more than 150 students to a question-and-answer session.

"It will work and succeed only if you make it personal," Patrick said. "If you, when you're making those calls, tell them your own stories about why this is the right man for right now . . . then Sen. Obama wins in Massachusetts."

Patrick's training session marked the start of a five-day "Get Out the Vote" drive, during which volunteers plan to call, canvas and knock on doors in hopes of racking up votes for Obama, Patrick committee field consultant Eli Forsythe said.

"[Volunteers] are the ones that have the voter-to-voter contact that's so important, and the governor is the embodiment of how that is successful," Patrick's spokesman Steve Crawford said.

Patrick, who publicly endorsed Obama in October, told volunteers that although Obama's campaign faces an "uphill battle in Massachusetts," he believes Obama is the best candidate for president.

Northeastern University Democrats President Caitlin Coyle said she thinks Obama represents her generation the best of all candidates, and he is the only candidate who can create change.

"I'm tired of being disappointed with these politicians, and I've yet to be disappointed by anything Obama has done," Coyle said. "I think that because Obama has this type of energy . . . he's really got the youth vote."

BU College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Sam Cerra said she hopes students will try to find more ways to get politically involved.

"It's not just about the older generation," she said. "You can be involved, and things can change in a direction that we want them."

Penn told students at BU Central that his involvement in the Obama campaign marks the first time he's used his pop culture appeal to rally voters.

"I'm not Oprah," Penn said. "This is the first time I've volunteered for something like this."

Penn said after hearing Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic Convention, he became "inspired."

"The TV was on in the background, and somebody was speaking, and I just heard this one line," he said. "It said, 'Especially after 9/11, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be divided between red states or blue states. We should focus on being the United States.' This was Barack, and I was just sitting there thinking, 'This guy should be president.'"

Penn, who started campaigning for Obama in October, stopped at BU as part of a Boston-area tour aiming to gather student votes for Obama.

Penn answered crowd questions about Obama's stance on immigration, health care and foreign affairs as well as his stance on racial and gender divides.

"In my lifetime, I was always referred to as Indian-American before my name," he said. "Since I've joined Sen. Barack's campaign, I've yet to hear anyone described along racial, ethnic, sexuality or gender terms in the day-to-day. He transcends that approach, I think partly from his family background."

Penn said he has been inspired by the wide-reaching appeal Obama has.

"What was so neat was that initially there was a disproportionate number of young people in Barack's corner," he told The Daily Free Press. "As the hour and half progressed, there were older voters in their 60s and 70s who were so inspired seeing masses of young people supporting a candidate that they . . . changed their minds at the last minute to support Barack."

Penn said he likes speaking to college students because he connects to their concerns, but added he sees a "variety of the crowds" along the diverse Obama campaign trail.

"It was the little kid sitting cross-legged in front of the podium and a 101-year-old who stood up from his wheelchair," he said. "It was black, white, everything and everyone else. It's about an extraordinary leader."