During a recent sit down interview with MTV, Veteran hip hop journalist Sway Callaway spoke with President Barack Obama in what was the Presidents chance to reach out to a younger group of potential voters. With polls showing a very tight race in swing states, President Obama took his campaign to Viacom-owned cable net MTV Friday for a live Q&A. MTV noted 45 million 18-to-29 year olds are eligible to vote this election. That is a huge a target age group of the network.
For the 30 minute special, MTV took questions from Facebook for the President about jobs, the cost of college, rising student loan debt, and social issues like LGBTQ rights. All these were topics that MTV said were at the heart of the target group that President Obama was trying to target.
When speaking about LGBTQ rights, President Obama said, “Trying to legislate federally on same-sex couples’ marriage rights is probably the wrong way to go,” Obama told Sway adding that courts are examining these issues and reminding Sway of his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act.
“Ultimately, I believe that if we have that conversation at the state level, the evolution taking place in this country will get us to a place where were going to be recognizing” same-sex marriages.”
The President also spoke about the need to hear more political messages in the music and cited Bruce Springsteen as one of his favorite artists and mentioned Bob Marley as a favorite of his while he was in college.
While he didn’t use the interview to go at Mitt Romney, he did make a point to show a huge difference between himself and the Governor when the issue of climate change came up. When referring to the Governor, the President said, “He believes in climate change, but he says he’s not sure man-made causes are the reason,” Obama said, adding, “I believe scientists, who say we’re putting too much carbon emissions into the atmosphere and it’s heating the planet and it’s going to have a severe effect.”
Barack’s attempt to reach out to MTV as a way to reach the younger demographic is not new. Then candidate Bill Clinton was the first to hold a town hall type meeting with the youth using MTV back in 1994.
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