Although the idea of road-tripping across the United States brings to mind young college-age students searching for themselves, a journalist doing just that stopped at the University of Wisconsin to chat with students about their political views Monday.
Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine, is currently participating in a 12-state journey to see what Americans really think about President Barack Obama, their own local elections and the future of the country.
Klein asked the audience questions ranging from how many people were optimistic about the future of the nation to how many were worried and how many supported or opposed the president.
The audience asked Klein questions on a variety of topics including bi-partisan cooperation, the Tea Party, the Stimulus Package and Health Care Reform.
A key to gaining the public’s trust for Obama lies in Obama demonstrating his ability to run the country, Klein said.
“The public is skeptical about government and the first duty of any democratic president, is to prove that he or she…is going to manage the government and…to make sure that the government is run efficiently,” he said.
Klein said he believed Obama should make a grand gesture, such as freezing wages of federal employees or switching from pensions to 401K plans to achieve such support.
However, Klein admitted there is one caveat to his idea.
“Before [Obama is] going to be successful, he has to establish that he’s going to manage [the country] well,” Klein said. Finishing day eight of his speaking trip, Klein said he decided to travel around the country to gauge public opinion for himself. “I realized I spent more time…overseas over the last two or three years than I had in the middle of our country and clearly it was a critical time for our country,” he said.
So far, finding anxiety among the American people as opposed to anger has been the biggest surprise of the journey, Klein said.
In particular, he said citizens realize the federal government cannot make the current problems disappear and Obama is not completely to blame for those problems.
Despite this knowledge, Klein said the people still have their doubts about the commander-in-chief.
“They’re skeptical about the things that he has done, and they worry about the moral fiber of the country,” he said.
The UW School of Journalism and Mass Communication was able to get Klein to stop through an alumna at Time, Inc., UW journalism professor Katy Culver said.
Culver said she arranged the talk Sept. 8 and was not sure how many people would attend on such short notice.
Klein said he felt the discussion went well, especially the questions and observations of both students and the general public. “I think I always knew the University of Wisconsin produced really great students,” he said. “It was really a wonderful thing for me to be out and see you folks.”
