Elections

First Lady Michelle Obama Urges Supporters to Get Out the Vote in Fredericksburg

Michelle Obama made a campaign stop at the University of Mary Washington Thursday.

By Mary C. Stachyra
Email the author
September 13, 2012

3 Comments

Upload Photos and Videos

0 of 0

new

Embed | Share

"We will win this state, and if we win Virginia, we'll be well on our way to put Barack back in the White House," Michelle Obama said, after which the crowd broke out in chants of "four more years!"

Photos (1)

Photos

"We will win this state, and if we win Virginia, we'll be well on our way to put Barack back in the White House," Michelle Obama said, after which the crowd broke out in chants of "four more years!"

Credit Mary C. Stachyra

Upload Photos and Videos

In an emotional plea at the University of Mary Washington Thursday, first lady Michelle Obama urged supporters get out the vote and underscored the importance of Virginia's results in the November election.

"It could all come down to what happens in just a few battleground states like Virginia," Obama said, in her second Virginia campaign stop of the day.

After she told several personal stories about her relationship with the president, Obama urged supporters to help their friends and neighbors register to vote. Stressing the idea that every vote counts, she said that efforts in Virginia would be crucial.

"We will win this state, and if we win Virginia, we'll be well on our way to put Barack back in the White House," Obama said, after which the crowd broke out in chants of "four more years!"

The first lady received a warm welcome from her Fredericksburg supporters, including Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw and University of Mary Washington professor Denis Nissim-Sabat. Ken Darensbourg, a professor at Northern Virginia Community College, led the crowd in a recitation of the pledge, while Elizabeth Johns, from the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fredericksburg, sang the national anthem.

Virginia voted for Barack Obama in the 2008, though for 44 years, the state was solidly Republican. Virginia is now considered a swing state. Mitt Romney also made a campaign appearance in Fairfax City on Thursday, demonstrating just how intensely both candidates are working to win Northern Virginia votes.

In 2008, Obama said, her husband carried the state with just 235,000 votes. "And that might sound like a lot. But when you break it down, that's 100 votes per precinct. Think about it. 100 votes. That could mean just a couple votes in your neighborhood. That could be just one vote in your apartment complex."

Sign up for the Fredericksburg Patch newsletter to get local updates delivered to your inbox.

VIDEO: Michelle Obama's Speech at University of Mary Washington

Thanks. We'll email you the next time we update this story.

Raconteur

9:26 am on Friday, September 14, 2012

“So, let me get this straight (this is a long sentence), we’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke. So what the blank could possibly go wrong?”