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By Jescy Rodriguez– More photos of Obama’s campaign stop.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Morningside has been a popular stop for political campaigns of Presidential candidates both current and former.\u00a0 During the Iowa Caucuses earlier this year, Morningside was visited by a slew of Republican\u00a0frontrunners.\u00a0 Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, and eventual Republican Candidate Mitt Romney, all made their names known throughout campus as well as in the minds of new young voters.\u00a0 Saturday, however, was about the current President of the United States and his response to his critics with an optimistic look ahead to the future.<\/p>\n Read:\u00a0One student’s reaction.<\/a>\u00a0Obama’s message<\/a><\/p>\n Just how does an event so big happen at a small liberal arts college like Morningside? According to History Professor and current Woodbury County Democratic party Chairperson Greg Guelcher, this event is just one of many presidential campaign stops we\u2019ve received over the past ten years.<\/p>\n Guelcher said, \u201cWe have been working for well over a decade going back to the 2000 election campaign cycle to make Morningside College the place for Presidential candidates to come to.\u00a0 We work hard to attract candidates, provide a good venue, ensure a good crowd and we have had a surprising number of candidates on campus. [\u2026] It\u2019s great to have a sitting president come on campus, but we\u2019ve also had Mitt Romney.\u201d<\/p>\n Guelcher then listed a parade of big time political names, including Bachmann, Gingrich, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Bill Bradley, Barack Obama in his first campaign, and John Edwards.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve worked really hard to advertise the fact that we care and are politically committed to prove we are the place to be for incoming candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n Guelcher\u2019s role in making Saturday\u2019s campaign rally a possibility came from him lobbying the local campaign heavily as the Democratic Party Chair of Woodbury County.\u00a0 \u201cI told them I work at Morningside College, my students really care about politics and would really love an opportunity to meet a candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n Guelcher then changed gears and shared the limelight with others at Morningside College.\u00a0 \u201cIt also takes a lot of hard work on the part of the administration, people over at Lewis Hall, particularly Rick Wollman our director of public affairs, working around the clock to help the Obama Advance team set up for this event.\u201d<\/p>\n A chance to interview Rick did not come easy, as he was easily the busiest person on campus the week leading into president Obama\u2019s speech.\u00a0 Surprisingly, seven days before the event Wollman had no idea what was in store for the next workweek ahead of him.<\/p>\n Wollman said, \u201cMonday morning there was a knock on my office door and my assistant had with her a young gentleman representing the Obama for America campaign.\u00a0 The representative explained the campaign was in Sioux City looking for possible sites for what they described as a grassroots political event.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until around the middle of the week we realized it would be the President of the United States.\u00a0 I came to work Monday morning thinking it was going to be a typical work week.\u201d Much to his surprise, his \u201cwhole week was changed dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n Wollman, whowas \u00a0enthusiastic about the opportunity, commented,\u00a0 \u201dI think it\u2019s a great experience for students to have a sitting president on campus where you go to school.\u00a0 In my lifetime I have only seen a president speak, it\u2019s a big deal. \u201c<\/p>\n Asked about a possible return for candidate Mitt Romney, Wollman explained, \u201cMorningside\u2019s president John Reynders has made a policy, so that whenever possible we try to make college facilities available for individuals who have announced they are seeking elective office.\u00a0 We try to encourage events on campus so that our students and faculty can attend.\u00a0 Our driving force is to be able to get students to see hear and even possibly ask questions of some of these nationally prominent politicians who come to campus.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jescy Rodriguez– This past weekend President Barack Obama visited campus as one of the first stops on his way to Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic Convention, being held Thursday September 6. More photos of Obama’s campaign stop.\u00a0 Morningside has been a popular stop for political campaigns of Presidential candidates both current and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":4065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4064"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4071,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4064\/revisions\/4071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/thecr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>This past weekend President Barack Obama visited campus as one of the first stops on his way to Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2012 Democratic Convention, being held Thursday September 6.<\/p>\n