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Penn State Behrend to Host Sen. Barack Obama
Posted by Dennis on April 16, 2008
In his first campaign visit to northwest Pennsylvania, Sen. Barack Obama will hold a Town Hall-style meeting at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Friday, April 18, at 10:30 am, in the Junker Center. Young Democrats of America, a Penn State Behrend student organization, is hosting the event.
Admission will be by ticket only. Tickets will be distributed through the Obama ‘08 campaign at its Erie County headquarters on the corner of East Tenth and French streets in downtown Erie (former Two Friends Italian Restaurant).
A limited number of student tickets will be available in Reed 112 at 5 p.m. today, Wednesday, April 16. Students must show their Penn State Behrend ID’s and will be limited to one ticket per student.
Tickets for faculty, staff, additional students, and the public will available on a first-come-first serve basis from 5 pm to 9 pm, today, Wednesday, April 16, and from 10 am to 9 pm on Thursday, April 17. Tickets must be picked up in person, and a maximum of two tickets will be distributed per individual. No admittance will be permitted without a ticket. Total capacity for the event is 1,800.
As parking at Penn State Behrend is a concern, all attendees are encouraged to car-pool as much as possible.
Obama, the junior U S Senator from Illinois, is running against Sen Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Pennsylvania’s presidential primary is Tuesday, April 22; only seven state and two territorial primary elections remain after the commonwealth’s 188 delegates are chosen.
Robert Speel, an associate professor of political science at Penn State Behrend and author of Changing Patterns of Voting in the Northern United States (Penn State Press), notes that a visit to the northwest corner of the state is vital to Obama’s success in Pennsylvania’s primary.
“For a long time, the Obama campaign and national political analysts perceived the Erie area to be similar politically to Pittsburgh, Altoona, and Johnstown, but if you look at the recent political history of our region, it’s not like those cities,” Speel said. “Democrats in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania tend to be somewhat more conservative, but Erie County Democrats have tended to be more liberal in recent elections.
“Erie is a Democratic bastion of the state even while some other counties in the western half of Pennsylvania have trended Republican in recent elections,” he continued. “If things are close next Tuesday, northwest Pennsylvania may be the swing area.”
Speel writes a blog on the 2008 election. His research interests include American voting behavior, campaigns and elections, regional trends and political movements in the United States, ethnic and racial politics, American state and local politics, and Canadian politics.
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, is a comprehensive residential college offering 33 baccalaureate, six associate, four pre-professional and two graduate degree programs with 22 minors to more than 4,400 students. Focused on providing a student-centered environment, Penn State Behrend is the link that connects its students to a major research and land-grant institution on a campus enriched by more than 110 clubs and organizations, 21 NCAA varsity teams, 19 intramural sports and modern facilities.
Penn State Behrend is named as such due to a donation by Mary Behrend, widow of Ernst Behrend, who founded the Hammermill Paper Co. in Erie in 1898. The Behrend family lived on the 400-acre Glenhill Farm, which is the core of the Penn State Behrend campus today.
For more information, visit www.behrend.psu.edu.
Posted by Dennis at April 16, 2008 2:45 PM
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