President Obama to College Journalists: "What I Want to Do is Just to Go Speak to Young People Directly"

Barack Obama - Early College Years

And what I want to do is just to go speak to young people directly and remind them of what I said during the campaign, which was change is always hard in this country.  It doesn’t happen overnight.  You take two steps forward, you take one step back.  This is a big, complicated democracy.  It’s contentious.  It’s not always fun and games.  A lot of times, to bring about big changes like, for example, in our energy policy, you’re taking on a lot of special interests — the oil companies and utilities.  And some of them may not want to see the kinds of changes that would lead to a strong green economy.

And the point is, though, you can’t sit it out.  You can’t suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention…