Barack Obama

It was a buzz-filled weekend at Columbia as students struggled to enter their names in the lottery for the limited tickets to Thursday’s highly anticipated on-campus ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum and campus leaders scrambled to make plans.

As Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), CC ’83, stands at the end of one of the most competitive primary seasons and the beginning of the general election, Columbia University finds itself in a new political position.

Columnist Christien Tompkins discovers that it isn’t so easy to last as the “post-racial” candidate but finds comfort from an unlikely source.

Droopy-eyed Columbia Students for Obama returned from the Buckeye state early Wednesday morning after a long weekend of campaigning, traveling through the night so that one campaigner could make it back on time for a 9 am midterm. Despite the inopportune timing as academics anchor most students to their library desks, six students piled into a minivan last week and drove away from the Butler stacks to the Ohio haystacks.

University of Chicago political science professor Cathy Cohen spoke Monday about black youths, political and economic equality, and Barack Obama in a talk at the School of International and Public Affairs centered on her “Black Youth Project.” Though the presentation focused mostly on Cohen’s study of African-American young adults and their views on government and equal opportunity, questions posed afterward sparked a debate on the importance of Obama’s campaign for the Democratic nomination.

Though I remain ever suspicious and critical of mainstream electoral politics in the United States, there is a significant part of me that really wants to believe in Barack Obama. Yet, I am deeply troubled by what an Obama presidency could mean for racial politics in the United States, specifically the notion that his candidacy is symbolic of the confirmation of a “post-racial” era in this nation.

Monday night was a night of rock ‘n’ roll and surprisingly little politics for what was billed as a Barack Obama rally. In an effort to remind college students to vote the next day, a diverse group of indie rockers gathered at the Bowery Ballroom, joined by Stella Comedy.

In Harlem, a husband and wife clash over candidate preferences. Typical of those in the area, they anticipate that in a diverse and left-leaning neighborhood, the implications of today’s historic Democratic primary will signify more than just the selection of a candidate.

Despite our years of political activism, from taking over buildings to sitting in tents, Columbians don’t usually matter in presidential elections.

Photos from Thursday's speech in Harlem by Democratic presidential contender, Senator Barack Obama.