Obama light on policy in speech to College Democrats

(Obama with College Democrats in South Carolina last week)

Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to speak last week at the national convention of the College Democrats, oddly held in conservative South Carolina. (Video of the speech can be found here.) He was followed later in the week by other Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Media reports indicate Obama was a big hit with the young crowd. He mostly sought to inspire the young Democrats to action and public service, and it seemed the speech was fairly light on education policies that might benefit college students.

Obama did tout universal health care, saying he'd like to see all young people given the option to stay on their parents' health plans until age 25. He also decried the cost of college, noting that he and his wife, Michelle, paid student loans that were more than the cost of their mortgage for the first eight years of their marriage. But none of the media reports included any concrete proposals from Obama's speech to contain college costs or student loans.

Find coverage of his speech at The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C., at The Chicago Sun-Times, the Spartansburg, S.C., Herald-Journal and from the Savannah, Ga., Morning News.

His success at the convention also inspired a long Chicago Tribune story on Obama's strong appeal to young voters.

For archives of my blog posts on Obama, click the link with his name down the right side of this page, or go to Get on the Bus, my education blog at the Dayton Daily News.

(Image credit: The State)