First Lady Michelle Obama spoke at a rally on the University of Northern Iowa campus early this afternoon, with this message for students: Don’t procrastinate.
“You’ll wake up late and you’ll be like, ‘Is it Election Day? Oh that was yesterday. Oh my gosh, I didn’t know,'” Obama said, as the crowd laughed. “…You know! So don’t do that.”
The First Lady urged students to vote today, at a satellite voting site in the education building on campus.
“I’ve got good news for you. Here in this state it is already Election Day. Today is Election Day,” Obama said, and the crowd applauded and cheered. “See the beauty of where you are is that early voting started yesterday…so right after I’m doing speaking, I want you all to walk out that main door, follow the volunteers and do your part to move this country forward.”
Obama said everyone who supports her husband “will have to work like never before” to ensure he wins reelection. To help make her case, Obama cited the results of the 2008 election, when her husband won Iowa by 147,000 votes.
“That may sound like a lot, but when you break it down that’s just 87 votes per precinct,” Obama said. “…That would mean just a couple of votes in a neighborhood, right? A single vote in the hallway of your dorm.”
Obama said the people she was speaking to this afternoon had the power “to beat that 87” by finding five others to vote for the president.
“We need you to talk to everyone you know. Everyone. Your friends, your neighbors, that cousin you haven’t seen in a while, that student sitting next to you in class. You know the one. You know he’s not registered,” Obama said, and the audience laughed as she continued: “You can you can just look at him. You can just tell. You can pick ’em out. Find ’em. Shake ’em.”
Obama spoke in the McLeod Center where UNI basketball teams play their games. Senator Tom Harkin spoke before the First Lady, joking that Republican Mitt Romney may not be “toast” yet, but he’s “in English muffin” territory right now.
Romney’s son, Josh, will be in Council Bluffs this evening to speak with supporters at Barley’s Bar and Grill. GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is set to campaign in Dubuque, Clinton, Muscatine and Burlington on Monday and Tuesday.