Alicia Fidler / For The Post / af142406@ohiou.edu

Michelle Obama speaks to a crowd in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium yesterday afternoon. Obama was in Athens to support her husband’s candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination.  

The Barack Obama campaign often touts its ability to get grassroots volunteers. Sometimes it even finds them in the lines outside its rallies.

That’s how it got Ohio University junior Jessie Birkla.

Birkla was the first to arrive at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium to hear Michelle Obama speak. It wasn’t long until campaign staffers approached her to help collect contact information and pass out voting pamphlets — a task she gladly accepted.

“I figured while I’m standing in line, I might as well help,” she said.

That same theme of involvement and empowerment was echoed in Michelle Obama’s speech to the crowd that filled the lower half of the 2,000-seat auditorium. The Illinois senator’s wife said America needs to work for strong citizen involvement and dedication as opposed to being apathetic.

Obama stressed that while her husband’s campaign has been criticized for being too vague, specificity is not what the nation is missing. Instead, the will needed to work for change is the answer.

“We have a hole in our soul that needs fixed,” she said. “We need a little inspiration.”

But a Sen. Obama presidency would be based on more than intangibles, she said. A key example in this argument is the Iraq War, which her husband was against from the beginning. Obama stressed that the care provided to Iraq war veterans also needs to be improved, a point that resonates with Athens resident Lou Horvath.

“It seems the current administration is quick to send our servicemen abroad, but slow to recognize their service,” said Horvath, a Vietnam War veteran.

Obama also told the audience of mostly college students that the educational system needs to be fixed. After criticizing the No Child Left Behind Act for teaching a test instead of teaching students, she moved to the financial burden of college. Obama and her husband just recently finished paying off their student loans from law school, she said.

“Imagine the President of the United States just a few years out of student debt — haven’t seen that for a while,” she said.

She also touted her husband’s work in the Illinois state legislature to expand children’s health care, pass ethics reform and mend a faulty death penalty system. But the overriding theme of the speech touched on the same idea that coaxed Birkla from her spot in line: inspiration.

“I’ve just never been so inspired,” said Birkla, who was a Republican before coming to OU. “I just feel like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”