The 2008 election was the beginning, not the end, of the journey for voters who were energized by President Barack Obama’s victory two years ago, Obama told an audience in the Marvin Center Tuesday night.

Obama spoke to and took questions from the crowd of about 175 voters for about 45 minutes in the Continental Ballroom, which was transformed into a circular town hall setting for the “Moving America Forward” event. It was sponsored by the Democratic National Committee as part of its mobilization efforts for the midterm elections Nov. 2.

“We’ve got a whole lot more work to do,” Obama said. “If you can muster and sustain that sort of energy, I’m absolutely confident we will do well, we will win all across the country.”

He cautioned that Republicans are ready capitalize on the current political climate with a “throw the bums out” message while Americans are still out of work.

“The other side right now is excited,” Obama said. “They see the opportunity in the midst of some still very difficult economic times, they see the opportunity to take advantage of that politically.”

Obama said this election season has been “unprecedented” in the way special interest groups have been spending millions of dollars on campaign ads, but said voters could counter their message by talking to their friends and neighbors about the facts.

“No matter how negative an ad it may be, it’s sort of background noise,” Obama said. “When they hear those things from you directly, that has more credibility than any other negative ad…and that’s how democracy ultimately should work.”

Obama called on GW junior Dan Lippman for a question, who asked what surprises Obama encountered during his first two years in office. Obama said the most surprising thing was learning to figure out how to navigate the new media environment most effectively.

“The 24-hour news cycle is just so lightning fast and the attention span I think is so short that sometimes it’s difficult to keep everybody focused on the long term,” Obama said.

Freshman Oscar Wang called being part of the town hall audience “a really great opportunity to meet the most powerful man on earth.”

A first-time voter in the 2010 elections, Wang said he did some phone-banking for the DNC two weeks ago and was asked to attend.

“I’m pretty much excited without words,” Wang said.