Posted by: Riikka

5 Feb 2008

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The student groups U-DFL and Students for Obama brought U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., actress Scarlett Johansson and actor actor Kal Penn to the Coffman theater Monday night.

Following caucus training, Ellison spoke with students about civic engagement and encouraging them all to caucus tonight.

“Don’t look for a hero to come in and fix it for you,” he said. “The tuition fight is a great place to start,” Ellison said.

The actors both volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign and spoke on his behalf.

“This is a time when our vote counts,” Johansson said.

Penn alluded to the writers’ strike and discussed the patterns and potential of people under 30.

Facebook, he said, was recently valued at $1.6 billion.

“That’s wealth that, unlike our parents’ generation, wasn’t created by mining for diamonds in conflict regions,” Penn said. “This is stuff we collectively created by sitting in front of our computers.”

Johansson said she feels Obama is a candidate who can “humanize politics” and called him “a politician (they) can trust.”

Source: Minnesota Daily

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