As we all know, President Barack Obama is coming to the great state of Wisconsin this Thursday, and many of us couldn’t be more excited. The President is coming to Madison for the second time in two years and regardless of our agreement or disagreement with his views, the opportunity to experience such a powerful and skilled public speaker is hard to resist.

Will we really listen to what he says?

Since I arrived at the University of Wisconsin three years ago, I’ve taken a greater interest in politics. Previously politics loomed over my head like a dark cloud, filled with confusion, competing points of view and smear campaigns pinning one candidate against another. I was never able to cut through the crap, so to speak, to pick a party. And to be honest, I still can’t.

I’ve found that many of us tend to grow up with politics engrained in our minds by our families. We then take this side because it is what our parents have taught us and it is what we know. Some of us will continue to research this political party in order to strengthen established opinions. Few of us change our minds from what we’ve been brought up to understand as “right.”

For my family, what is “right” is Republican. However, I find it hard to come to terms with some of these opinions. Mitt Romney is pro-life. I’m not pro-abortion, but I do strongly believe that as a woman, what happens with and inside of my body is entirely my right to choose. Yet this argument is strongly combated by a family member who says that those are “liberal talking points about a woman’s body” and are “all false,” but as I am “in the land of the liberals” he is “sympathetic.” With such a family opposition, how am I supposed to develop a personal and well-educated opinion? What media outlets have absolutely no spins to the left or right? Republicans will send me to one source, while Democrats send me to another.

As we draw closer and closer to Obama’s arrival on campus, I hope that more than giving an amazing public speech, he is able to address the issues at hand that hit closest to home for today’s youth. I hope he discusses plans to reignite the dwindling job market, gives a to-the-point description of his healthcare reforms and ultimately proposes what he plans to do in order to turn our country around. I need clear-cut answers, not a beautifully constructed speech.

We are sinking deeper and deeper into recession. So here’s the question that rises to the surface: Is Barack Obama the man to pull us out?

Christin Wiegand ([email protected]) is a junior with an undecided major.