Biden speaks to youth group
Tells 150-plus that they are ‘engine of change’
Source: Delaware State News
By Drew Volturo
May 13, 2008
DOVER — How often can a high school student ask a question of a U. S. senator and former presidential candidate, listen to soldiers talk about the war in Iraq and discuss the media’s coverage of politics?
The answer is “ at least once a year,” at the annual Biden Youth Conference, a daylong seminar begun more than 30 years ago by the late senator William V. Roth Jr., which drew more than 150 students from 31 schools to Wesley College Monday.
“The world has changed utterly in the last 15 years,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D- Del., who continued the conference after Mr. Roth left the Senate in 2000. “ From the time you were a couple years old and President Clinton was sworn in, there are now 1.4 billion more people competing for the jobs you’re going to be seeking.”
But the senator lamented that 400,000 students accepted to colleges in the U. S. last year could not attend for lack of financial aid.
“ People 18- 40 are the engine of change,” Sen. Biden said. “ You’re all potential leaders.”
During an hourlong talk and question- and- answer segment, Sen. Biden discussed several topics, including the energy crisis and global warming. After outlining negative projections of global warming’s impact, the senator stressed that there is hope for the future: the students in attendance.
“ I am absolutely convinced with every fi ber in my being that this generation has a chance of making hope and history rhyme,” Sen. Biden said after quoting Irish poet Seamus Heaney. “ We can change the world.”
Caesar Rodney High junior Tina Rossi, 17, of Camden, said she attended the conference to learn more about Sen. Biden and broaden her horizons about current events.
“ It was cool to meet the senator,” Ms. Rossi said. “ He said a lot of interesting things about a lot of the big issues out there.”
For Caesar Rodney High junior Phil Livingston, the conference was right up his alley, although it leaned the opposite way. Mr. Livingston, 17, of Magnolia, said he loves to attend political events and is politically involved, volunteering earlier this year on the presidential campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican.
Still, Mr. Livingston said he was happy to come out and hear Sen. Biden speak. “ He’s the senior senator from Delaware,” he said. “ It’s a good chance to hear his ideas and hear him speak, even though we disagree. I was hoping to get out of this a better idea of how the Senate works and about the war in Iraq.”
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