Staff Reporter Farouk Samad had an opportunity to catch up with Terry McAuliffe after he spoke to students at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Here is a partial transcript of that interview:
Daily Pennsylvanian: Are you encouraging students from out of state who go to Pennsylvania colleges to register here, given that this is a battleground state?
TM: If they can, they are certainly encouraged to do so. This is absolutely a critical state, and we have to win it.
DP: Do you think that students are a big part of the grassroots effort?
TM: They have to be. Students can determine who's the next president of the U.S., that's what I tried to convey here today.
You know with 27 million eligible young people who didn't vote in 2000, that's a quarter of the total votes that were cast. ... If we can get a big percentage of those young people to come out and vote and understand that this is about your jobs and education, if we can get a percentage of those 27 million, we will win this election.
Two-to-one we're favored by young people, so the more young people we get out the better off John Kerry is and the better off this country is. But the future is in the young people and students' hands, they've got to understand this.
