Actor and “America’s Got Talent” host Nick Cannon told The Daily Caller that President Barack Obama is “absolutely” taking the country in the right direction and that young voters will support him again in 2012.
TheDC asked Cannon if he thinks the youth vote would be as strong for Obama in 2012 as it was in his first campaign.
“I believe so, I mean, being someone who, like you said, was involved early on with the Obama campaign and then to see everything that’s going on today in the world, I feel like people are paying just as much attention and so much focused on not just who to vote for, but they’re focused on kind of bettering themselves,” the 31-year-old told TheDC.
“I think a lot of people, I think if anything, need to be re-energized by or about government as a whole, not whether they’re voting for one candidate or another. It’s just the idea of just, you know, we’ve got to have faith in our government and in our system again and that’s where we’ve got to get re-energized.”
When asked if he personally thinks Obama is moving the country in the right direction, Cannon said, “Absolutely, I mean, you know, but like I said, I’ve been kind of riding since the beginning and, you know, and will continue to kind of do the same thing as I did in 2008.”
According to US News and World Report, young people turned out in record numbers to support Obama in 2008. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Obama presidency)
Cannon, a spokesman for Safe Communications, was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday participating in a briefing about the privacy of children and teens online.
Alongside Democratic Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, Cannon advocated for passage of the Do Not Track Kids Act, which would update the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 by protecting young people from targeted advertising.
The bill would require any “operator of a website, online service, online application or mobile application directed to children or minors” to obtain “verifiable parental consent” before collecting their child’s information.
Cannon supports this provision of the bill, saying, “parental supervision must extend from the playground to the Internet just as children learn to wear seat belts in cars and helmets when they’re riding their bicycles, parents need to teach the importance of being protected while online.”
Cannon’s wife, music superstar Mariah Carey, gave birth to twins last year.