Young people feel a lot of ownership in the Barack Obama presidency. There's a general sense that Obama is our generation's president, that he thinks and operates in a way we can understand.
We know the country needs leadership now more than ever, and after getting to know him on the campaign trail we decided that Obama could be that leader. And so we turned out for him. In large numbers.
To us, Obama's presidency represents the chance to make a clean break with how our country has been run up to this point in our lives. We occasionally joke about his messianic stature, but we are, in truth, expecting a lot. Our generation has grown up under the Bush Administration, and craves some leadership we can believe in.
That leadership will mean different things to different people, though. Obama became an icon during this campaign, onto which voters could project their own desires. Any disagreements we might have with him were generally pushed aside the closer we got to election day.
Now the battle with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has ended, disagreements will start to pop up again.
We can, though, pick out a few of the most important issues on which we will be expecting decisive action.
UWIRE's poll of college voters showed that economic concerns far outweighed any other issues. But it's tough to figure out just what we should be expecting here. Things are bad and will probably stay that way for a while. The president doesn't get to snap his fingers and create growth.
He will, though, have to show strong leadership. The most fundamental "change" Obama brings to the presidency is this: We haven't given up on him yet. We've already decided President Bush cannot get us out of the hole we're in — he helped dig it. Obama is going to have to show us he's ready to get things back on track.
Measures that target us directly, like increased college aid, will help grease the skids. And those sorts of policies should be relatively easy to enact with a sympathetic Congress. But on the really big stuff — the economy, the wars, health care — we're going to be looking for smart, level-headed leadership.
Obama demonstrated those qualities during his campaign, and early signs are encouraging. He's been assertive in his meetings with Bush, pushing hard for a new stimulus package.
After all, Obama doesn't have much to lose. Things are bad, so he can afford to be aggressive in seeking solutions. We thought he'd be the best candidate to make that happen. And so we're expecting him not to change — at least, not to change himself. He's supposed to be changing everything else.
John Sharkey is a columnist for the Minnesota Daily at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. This column originally appeared Nov. 17 on the UWIRE affiliate Youth Vote '08.