As questions, both political and personal, swirl around presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., ISU students will be among the first Iowans to personally ask for answers.

Sunday’s visit to campus will be among Obama’s first appearances in Iowa since launching his presidential exploratory committee. He has been embraced by many younger voters, despite his status as a first-term junior senator.

Jeremy Ziemer, graduate student in political science, and liaison for the campus group Students for Barack Obama, said Obama’s engaging personality helps him transcend his limited national experience and appeal to younger voters.

“He has the capability to send that message to the audience that this country is, in fact, what its founders thought it could be – which is a leader in the world,” Ziemer said.

Steffen Schmidt, professor of political science, said young people will help maintain momentum, but Obama’s ultimate success will depend on broadening his support base.

“It is good to get that enthusiasm, but he can’t count on college students and young voters to help him win or do well in the Iowa caucus,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt said the senator will likely emphasize his bipartisan reputation.

“He will have a hard message that will be the message about the war and about his opposition to Bush and the need to really get someone else into the White House and end the war. Then he will have a soft message of charm and conciliation and bring the best of his very positive personality out,” Schmidt said.

Obama’s press spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said Obama’s early criticism of the war is one of the issues that will show the senator’s superior judgment is more important than the experience of his presidential rivals.

“Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld have some of the most experience in Washington, some of the longest resumes, but they led us into the war in Iraq,” Vietor said.

Obama’s identity has also drawn scrutiny. Schmidt said some have questioned whether Obama is “black enough” and that he will have to compete with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for the support of black voters.

Tunde Adeleke, director of the African-American Studies program, said platforms will be more important than identity issues for minorities and the Democratic party should not feel entitled to the support of blacks.

“People are going to look for all sorts of excuses to tarnish or deprive Obama of his candidacy and one very convenient one has to do with his so-called not being black enough or not being American enough,” Adeleke said. “It’s not in the identities, it is in the ideas; that is what is going to determine eventually who gets the support of black Americans.”

Schmidt said Obama has already come under fire for being slow to definitively answer such personal, as well as political, questions.

“Somebody criticized him on that, saying that he is somebody who doesn’t have a stance on any issues, he can make conservatives think he agrees with them and liberals think he agrees with them,” Schmidt said. “That’s great, but if you’re president you have to take a position on certain issues.”

President of ISU Democrats Sarah Sunderman, senior in marketing, said students will likely have many more chances to hear Obama’s and other candidates’ views on these and other issues in the future.

“They are all in it to win it, and they know that they are going to have to campaign and come to Iowa and continue doing that all the way through the process,” Sunderman said.