2008 Woodie Awards
Hollywood actors visit campus for Obama's campaign
Jeremy Pink
Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: News
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The group spoke to a crowd of students and community members in the Hamilton Center.
Donovan, who is best known as playing Jimmy Cooper on the Fox TV program "The O.C.," and Washington, who has appeared in such films as "Save the Last Dance" and "Ray," arrived in Whitewater after spending the first portion of their day at Marquette University and other Milwaukee locations.
The two Hollywood stars joined Gus and Gabe Doyle, offering students their personal experiences with Obama and why they see him as the better democratic candidate.
Donovan spoke of how he came to know about Obama long before Obama declared he would run for the democratic nomination. Donovan said his support of Obama originally came upon reading Obama's book and becoming fascinated with him.
"[While I read the book] I was thinking 'you can't be this honest … when you want to be president of the United States, but this was incredible,'" Donovan said. "As I read I thought 'Wouldn't we be lucky if we had this guy as president?'"
Donovan said he was amazed that Obama was the same in person as he seemed in the book, so he decided to become involved and support him.
Washington said she had a similar interest in Obama and his bid to become president. She explained she was initially torn between Obama and Hillary Clinton because of her personal identification but realized she needed to move beyond those as reasons to choose a candidate.
"I'm a woman, and I'm a feminist," Washington said. "I believe in supporting our women leaders. I'm also black. I realized I needed to stop thinking of gender and race.
When I took a look at the candidates, I knew Barack Obama was my candidate."
She said Obama was the right person in her mind because of his ability to unite a country that is currently on the ropes.
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