After debate, IU Dems expect momentum

The IU College Democrats wanted Barack Obama to say one thing, and 40 minutes into the presidential debate, they got it.

“We’ve spent over $600 billion so far, soon to be a trillion. We have lost over 4,000 lives. We have seen 30,000 wounded,” the Democratic presidential nominee said about the War in Iraq.

About 50 student Democrats met Friday night at a house on East University Street to watch the first presidential debate on foreign policy.

The loudest cheer of the night came when Obama criticized President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war, which they called Obama’s biggest strength.

“He came through, and I believe in him,” said senior Jim Snaza. “He came through on the points the people here wanted to see like the Iraq war.”

The student Democrats agreed Obama won the debate easily.

“Sometimes I think he still restrains himself, but tonight I think we saw him moving beyond that,” said senior Anna Strand, the president of the IU College Democrats.

Senior Rose Byrne, president of IU Students for Barack Obama, said Obama acted like the next president.

“It was really presidential to me, how he held himself,” Byrne said. “He looked at McCain, and he backed everything he said with policy.”

The students criticized McCain’s lack of policy details.

“He just told a lot of stories – prisoner of war and all these stories – and I don’t feel like he was offering to the American people solutions to problems,” Byrne said.

Snaza said Obama talked to the American citizens, while McCain talked to the moderator.

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“Senator Obama, he addressed the American people – that’s the most important thing – and he addressed John McCain,” Snaza said. “When you do that you’re going to win the debate.”

Students acknowledged that McCain had a lead in foreign policy before, but they said this debate would help change that.

“People perceive him to be better,” Strand said. “I think (foreign policy) is his strongest point. I think he had a lead coming into this, and I think what Obama did is show that is not the case.”

Snaza predicted Obama would get a two-point bounce in the polls.

“I really think that this is going to give us momentum,” Byrne said. “I think this is definitely going to help us and definitely give us the momentum to make it so we can turn Indiana blue.”