How Jeremy the College Kid Got on the Stage With Obama and Romney - East Idaho News
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How Jeremy the College Kid Got on the Stage With Obama and Romney

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101712 JeremyEpstein?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1350526201427ABC News(NEW YORK) — Although most of us try to avoid telemarketers, Jeremy Epstein’s sister didn’t. She picked up the phone and was asked by a research company if she was a registered voter. She said no, but her older brother was. She handed him the phone.

That’s how Epstein found his five minutes of fame.

After confirming he was an undecided voter, the polling company told him he could attend the presidential debate on Tuesday and ask both candidates one question.

Luckily, Epstein, an exercise-science major at Adelphi University, is still taking unsolicited phone calls and that’s how ABC News found him. He picked up the phone at home on the first ring.

He remembered being very nervous when the cameras focused on him in the first minutes of the debate. He asked his question to Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama.

“What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?” he asked.

Romney offered him a job on the spot.

“When you come out in 2014, I presume I’m going to be president,” Romney said. “I’m going to make sure you get a job. Thanks, Jeremy. Yeah, you bet.”

We asked him if he had other job offers considering how quickly his first one happened.

Epstein paused.

“Other than the one, really, that Mitt Romney offered me 5 minutes into the debate, not really,” he said. “You know, I don’t want to be viewed as just some person who went on TV in front of 60 million people and asked the two most powerful men for jobs. I asked the question because it’s how a lot of people in my position feel — 20-year-old students just like me who are actually really nervous about whether or not they will get a job and how they can support themselves.”

He spent part of the day revising his resume. The debate experience is going to be the first thing prospective employers read.

“That’s probably going to go at the top — actually my entire resume,” he said. “I think that instead of including my previous work history, I’m just going to write, ‘appeared and asked the first question on 2012 town hall debate.’”

But Epstein isn’t expecting to be part of a potential Romney administration. He still considers himself undecided but leans toward one candidate.

“Well, if the election was today, I probably would vote for the president, so I don’t know if you would call me undecided,” he said. “But it would be a good label to put me under.”

ABC News’ Jon Karl labeled Epstein as the real winner in the debate on World News. Does he feel like a winner and has it improved his social life?

“I found out on Twitter last night that I had a lot more cousins than I thought I did and people knew me who … I had no idea that they knew me,” he said. “People are saying that they went to sleep-away with me. I’ve never been to sleep-away camp. Stuff like that.”

He definitely feels like he won.

“Me being able to ask a question of the president and the governor, I think that’s why you’d be able to call me the winner of the debate,” he said, “because I think that they both kind of used me as a starting point in getting in their arguments.”

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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