Randolph College senior a foot soldier for Obama

By Kristin Hodges

Published: October 25, 2008

Ashley Thomas is a foot soldier for Barack Obama.

“I truly believe everything he says is legitimate and real,” Thomas said. “And he really wants to bring about change, and he has a very intense group of followers and loyal people who are willing, basically, to drop everything they are doing to try and get him elected.”

Thomas, a senior at Randolph College, is one of those loyal followers. She works with Obama’s campaign office in Lynchburg, and is also president of Randolph College Students for Obama.

With the campaign office, Thomas has spent her time registering 350 students to vote, making telephone calls and getting other students involved. She’s encouraged by the motivation she’s seen in fellow students.

“There’s been a revolutionary movement in conversation, because instead of people saying, ‘What are you doing Friday night?’ now it’s like, ‘Let’s go watch the debates, what do you think about Obama’s Iraq policy?’”

Thomas said she has been following Obama since his Democratic National Convention speech in 2004 and supported his presidential campaign from the beginning, but really became involved after interning in Washington, D.C. this summer.

“I knew I always wanted to be in politics,” Thomas said. “When I started debating in middle school and high school, I just got really into politics and found my little niche, and decided that I was a Democrat. And since then I’ve worked on different campaigns.”

Krista Leighton, the associate director and intern coordinator of the Experiential Learning Center at Randolph, said an Obama campaign field organizer contacted the college to discuss internship and fellowship opportunities for students.

“I have not heard anything from the McCain campaign organizers asking for assistance or even volunteers,” Leighton said. “I did attempt to reach out to our leaders of the College Republicans on campus in hopes of getting some internships started for the McCain campaign once I saw this potential during an election year.”

Leighton said she would have been more than happy to offer internships and volunteer opportunities for the McCain campaign, if students were looking for one or a campaign representative contacted Randolph College. Overall, she said she is impressed with the student interest in this year’s election, including the students with credit and non-credit internships.

“The students I have been working with have been very self-motivated and initiated the interest to help with the Obama campaign on their own through Facebook and other communication,” Leighton said.

Ilce Garcia also is working in the hopes to see Obama win Virginia. The Randolph senior is an intern with the Obama campaign and a part of College Democrats. One of the ways that Garcia has tried to persuade other students to vote for Obama is by helping organize parties where the presidential debates were watched.

“A lot of people don’t want to vote if they’re uneducated, so at least we push people to vote and Obama will be giving out his opinions and hopefully convince people,” Garcia said.

Though now she now firmly supports Obama, he was not Garcia’s original first choice for the Oval Office.

“I was originally a Hillary supporter. As soon as she was basically no longer in the race, I really had to reevaluate the candidates. And of course, Obama is closer to her own political stance.”

Garcia said she believes Obama will win the election and thinks a large part of the campaign is his appeal to student voters.

“I believe he addresses a lot of issues that are pertinent to students right now, such as health care issues, cost of education and Social Security,” Garcia said. “Because a lot of the students here, at one point, have to take care of their parents and themselves.

“I guess he addresses a lot of those really important issues — the war in Iraq — a lot of the immediate issues that target our age.”