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"FacebookPinterest\n\nBriana Potts and Ashley Christian are roommates. They both came to a Michelle Obama rally Friday at Virginia State University to support the president's re-election efforts. They both have pierced tongues. And they were both in junior high when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, which means this is their very first time voting in a presidential campaign.\n\n\"Because I've never voted before, to have an actual say in what my president's going to be is exciting,\" says Briana, a Virginia State University freshman in cat eyeliner and colorful floral scarf. She has vague memories of 2008, she says, but was never quite so politically engaged until now. \"I was in 8th grade. I had to write a paper for class about the election, about the difference between Barack's campaign and McCain's campaign. I wasn't really into politics so I don't remember what I said, but my parents were into politics and they were really excited. They went to the inauguration.\"\n\n Ashley, a sophomore dressed in a bright pink fleece, sits on the metal barricade separating the rally goers from the press. \"It's just different,\" she says. She's supporting Obama for \"everything he stands for,\" and opposing Mitt Romney because \"Mitt Romney is the opposite of what we stand for.\"\n\nThey might not have their campaign talking points totally worked out yet, but Briana and Ashley are precisely the types of voters the Obama turnout effort Reid so ably wrote about this week are methodically, obsessively targeting: young African American women in one of the most critical swing states in the country who are just joining the electorate for the first time this year. They are the kinds of voters who would make Buffy Wicks smile. \"It's very interesting that a lot of people believe he's going to win, but the polls show it's a lot closer,\" says Gianna Shipp, another first time voter standing outside the gymnasium as the rally ends. She already voted absentee in her home state, North Carolina, which looks like an uphill climb for Obama this year. \"A lot of my friends don't need convincing,\" Gianna says. \"A lot of my friends are pretty gung-ho about voting. As first time voters, it's pretty, you know, shiny.\"\n\nRead more on Death Race 2012\n\nHunger Reads: Who's Really Winning Early Voting and White Supremacists Organizing Against Obama\n\nThe View From Romney Country\n\nJobs Numbers Conspiracy!\n\nBloomberg Endorses, Whatever That Means\n\nFollow Marin Cogan on Twitter for more updates from the political scene in Washington and on the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/the-kids-are-all-right>