Temple College Democrats held a viewing party of the Democratic National Convention in the Student Center Thursday night in anticipation of some of the convention’s biggest speeches.
Plans to organize the viewing party started at the beginning of the semester between the organization’s president, junior political science major Dylan Morpurgo and Obama For America Campus Organizer and senior political science major John Kucharski.
“We have a great OFA team on [Main Campus],” Morpurgo said. Morpurgo explained that through the use of their email list and Facebook page, they were able to easily get the word out about the event.
After being elected president of TCD at the end of spring semester, Morpurgo said that he and the other members wanted to not only get Temple students registered to vote this November, but also to make them aware and “excited” about the election.
“I think students are excited, if not more excited [about the election] this year than last year,” Morpurgo said.
Viewers filled the seats in the Student Center and Morpurgo said the original amount of seating they had arranged for wasn’t enough.
“We had to request for more chairs,” Morpurgo said.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden were among the speakers present at the Charlotte, N.C., convention where they both made their acceptance speeches as the party’s nominees for president and vice president.
Due to weather conditions in Charlotte last night, the venue of the convention had to be changed to the Time Warner Cable Arena, which seated significantly less than its original venue, Bank of America Stadium. This, however, did not change Temple students’ feelings of the event.
“I got hope from the speech,” Gwen Wiess, a freshman music therapy major, said. “There was a lot more people here and [the president’s speech] wasn’t bashing at all.”
Throughout the three-hour event, chants of “USA” erupted when former governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm said that Obama has saved jobs across the nation. Students applauded as Biden shared his view of the president as not a “sound bite” or a president, but as a man and the “enormity of his heart.” Laughter was heard when the president made small jokes and gentle humor throughout his speech.
“I think this room shows that people are enthusiastic,” Morpurgo said.
Vice President of the TCD Holly Genovese has been a member of the TCD since her freshman year and said that the organization’s impact has risen since she’s been at Temple.
“We have more of a presence on campus now because of voter registration and membership. It’s been great,” said Genovese, a senior political science major. “We also are having a Women and Politics Panel [after the election] in November.”
Genovese said that they plan to host various women in political power to come to the university and speak about their roles in politics Nov. 27. Genovese also said that even after the election, TCD plans to continue registering students to vote along with participating in various community services on Main Campus and in the city.
Addy Peterson can be reached at adlaine.braquel.peterson@temple.edu.
Be the first to comment