U.S. Senator, and Presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, will make a trip to Madison sometime in the coming weeks, Students for Barack Obama announced at their kickoff Thursday.

UW-Madison supporters packed a Grainger lecture hall in support of the student-led campaign for the presidential hopeful. “I think that there was a very raw passion to the people,” SFBO Chair Andy Gordon said of the audience.

Keynote speakers included Gus Doyle, Gov. Jim Doyle’s son, Madison’s District 8 alder Eli Judge and state Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh.

Hintz, who was elected last year in large part to his opposition to the marriage ban, said he believes Obama is the one Presidential candidate who tells the people of the United States “what we can instead of what we can’t.” Judge spoke briefly about his past involvement with Wisconsin’s LGBT organization and the Fair Wisconsin campaign.

He said Obama’s record is “phenomenal” and went on to endorse him for the 2008 presidency mainly because of Obama’s dedication to the preservation of human rights.

Besides supporting his father during his campaign trial, Gus Doyle has not played a substantive role in politics. Since graduating with a psychology degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., Doyle has balanced his success in real estate while finishing up graduate school at UW-Whitewater and being a single father.

However, with such a vital election nearing, Doyle said he chose to become involved.

“It was a recent decision that I come out with my endorsement … anything that I can do to help [Obama] out with his efforts—I’m there,” he said, while noting his endorsement was not necessarily an extension of his father’s views.

Doyle said after being “mislead, misrepresented, and misinformed … people are ready for a change—and that change is Barack Obama.”