With only 36 days remaining until the presidential election, the political climate on the ETSU campus is anything but cold. Bumper stickers are beginning to appear on cars, students are sporting hats and shirts of their favorite candidates, and political conversations are abundant in the classrooms and hallways.
What has been dubbed by many pundits as the most critical election facing Americans in 50 years has definitely succeeded in raising an acute awareness and ire of many ETSU students.
Students were asked to voice their opinions about the issues that seem to be fueling the campaigns, and were selected at random during interviews conducted over the past two weeks.
From the war in Iraq to the nation’s economy and Osama bin Laden, students were not shy in voicing their opinions.
Senior information technology major Jason Robin felt that candidate identification was skewed.
“I think the most important thing is to actually find what the candidates are really representing, because the media seems to water [it] down,” he said.
However, Andrew Haselden, a sophomore piano performance major, looked at the issues from a different angle. “I would say that just voting is important, no matter who you vote for,” he said.
Ironically, questions concerning Osama bin Laden seemed to bring out the best student comments.
When confronted with the question about the ability of the United States to hunt down bin Laden and capture him, Amy Jennings, a senior broadcast production and journalism major remarked, “Have we even been looking for him?”
A similar sentiment was shared by Nikki Potter, a freshman biology major. “I think [the government] could do a lot more,” she said. “We have so much special intelligence that we could have found him by now.”
Robin also doesn’t understand why the government has yet to find Bin Laden. “I don’t think it could be that tough to find a 6-foot-7 dude that’s the most wanted man in the world,” he said. “It shouldn’t take that long.”
Questions concerning government justification of the war in Iraq and the concern over our troops’ inability to find weapons of mass destruction showed that 75 percent of students surveyed viewed the war as wrong, and the same percentage had a definite problem with the WMD fiasco.
While the economy played a minor role in most student comments, 75 percent of those interviewed feel that neither candidate is personally likeable, cares about people like them or shares their values.
When asked about the candidates being honest and ethical, “No comment,” seemed to be the official answer.
This is the first in a series of articles dealing directly with the November presidential election and the opinions and thoughts of the students of ETSU. None of the students interviewed were asked to share their choice for president or party affiliation.
The second article in this series will appear next Monday in the East Tennessean.

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