A 'voice' For Obama: 'Family Guy' Creator MacFarlane Speaks At Bowling Green State U.
This story was written by Ryan Sullivan, The BG News
Bowling Green State University students who showed up to see "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane thought his speech was freakin' sweet.
The event was part of the Obama campaign's last-minute effort to get people registered to vote before today's voter registration deadline.
Adrianne Palicki, a star of the television show "Friday Night Lights," was also on hand to lend their support to the Obama campaign at a rally that took place on Saturday morning outside of University Hall.
Palicki was the first to speak and discussed the opportunity that most students had because this is their first chance to vote.
During her speech, the Toledo native also talked about the increase in tuition in the past eight years and how Ohio, as a swing state, "has a lot of power and we don't want to be the butt of jokes for the next four years." She said two of Obama's concerns centered around changing higher education and creating more jobs for people with the people receiving them.
MacFarlane was the next to speak and said the election of Ronald Reagan resulted in a three-decade-long dumbing down of America capped off by the Bush administration.
"It's interesting that in 1968 when that generation was 18, they threw their fists in the air and they urged people not to trust anyone over 30," MacFarlane said. "And what happened in 1980? Those same 18-year-olds turned 30 and turned around and elected Reagan president."
He said a recent problem within American politics was the conservative notion that it is wrong to be an educated, smart voter.
"The McCain camp tend to believe, from my perspective, that voters lack intelligence," MacFarlane said. "This is obvious in the way they try to persuade us, not with facts, not with solution or hard judgment but with little tricks like the folksy persona they have coached Palin to present. She winked at the camera so many times during that debate, I was wondering are we all gonna get to make out with her afterwards? It would be an angry, passionate encounter."
MacFarlane said he is not looking for a president who he can have a beer with, but rather someone who can effectively lead this nation.
"[Liberal] is deemed a negative in the land of liberty which is very odd to me," MacFarlane said.
The big concern of MacFarlane for the election is getting somebody in power who will help take care of the environment. He specifically cited the full power wind farm in Bowling Green and how that is a major accomplishment for the city.
After the speech was over, MacFarlane fielded several questions from the audience ranging from why this election is so important to various aspects of Family Guy.
MacFarlane went into the relationships among the "Family Guy" cast, mentioning that Brian can understand Stewie, Chris can partially understand him and the rest of the family only gets the gist of his message.
He was also asked who Stewie would vote for in the election and he responded, "I'm torn between his character and what I think." He threw his voice to sound like Stewie and said, "Stewie would probably vote for McCain because he is big on world domination," and also said Stewie would probably stick to eliminating Lois instead of Palin.
The pair's stop at the University was just part of a larger tour of Ohio this past weekend aimed at getting college students across the state registered to vote before the registration deadline, Kamyl Bazbaz, the spokesman for the Obama campaign, said.
There was no goal for the number of people the campaign wanted to register, they did want to get as many people signed up as possible, he said.
"This s our push right now," Bazbaz said. "So it's bring these [celebrities] in, they are really passionate. They are taking time out of their schedules to help because this election is that important."