Let me finish tonight with the joy it was to go out this week to those college campuses.You can give all the speeches in the world about democracy.There's nothing like getting out there with real American young people, with all their hope and dreams and vulnerability. They don't have it made but, boy, do they have wonder in their eyes.Here are some voices from the college tour, fresh from American youth - first from the University of Louisville, then the University of Illinois at Chicago, finally from Temple University last night in North Philadelphia.
We started going out to campuses in election years more than a decade ago. I love it, the excitement, the road, the walking onto to each new campus - all the human "traffic" out there - and what must be, even if they don't say it out loud - the hope, the aspiration, the fear, the job search, the parents hanging over them with their hopes, their worries, their dreams.What a great country this is in which to come of age. And what a great opportunity we've had - the bunch of us who work on Hardball - to race across the country with the college tour. I wish we could do it every day of the week at every college and university in the country - because they all deserve to speak and to be heard.Everyone talks about getting young people to get involved in our elections. I'm so glad that we get to bring politics right to them. It shows two things we don't show enough of: their citizenship, their interest, their concerns and our real, active "respect" for all of it.