Sean Duchaine
Senior, biology

“I back the can­di­dates and ideas which have the most com­mon sense. I have some feel­ings that sway demo­c­ra­tic and some that are more repub­li­can, but over­all I’d con­sider myself more of a lib­er­tar­ian because of their free-market ideas, empha­sis on civil lib­er­ties and non-intervention over­seas. I think we need to end the Federal Reserve, con­trol the mil­i­tary indus­trial com­plex, legal­ize mar­i­juana and research into more health ben­e­fits of mar­i­juana. Ultimately, we need a smaller and more constitution-oriented government.”

Valoree Burns
Sophomore, com­puter infor­ma­tion systems

“I don’t have any real polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion; it’s not some­thing I’ve really thought a lot about. However, com­ing to col­lege has made me think more about these issues. There are cer­tain things about cer­tain groups that I really like but I keep an open mind about them. I think it’s impor­tant that we end the war and move toward a uni­ver­sal health care sys­tem like they have in Canada. I like Stephen Colbert’s bid for presidency.”

Corey VanBuren
Senior, his­tory and polit­i­cal science

“My polit­i­cal views are def­i­nitely com­pli­cated. I’d say I’m lib­er­tar­ian on paper, but in prac­tice tend to lean more demo­c­ra­tic. Our ideals aren’t always very prac­ti­cal and can’t pro­vide the solu­tions we need. I’d prob­a­bly vote for Ron Paul but I don’t agree with his for­eign pol­icy; I think it’s too iso­lated and America needs to be active in the world not shut out.”

Brett Bieth
Sophomore, health­care sys­tems administration

“I would say that I’m demo­c­ra­tic. I like the Democratic party because I think that the coun­try should be run on the idea that the gov­ern­ment should try and help peo­ple who need it. We really need to fix the econ­omy, espe­cially focus­ing in on unem­ploy­ment which is a huge prob­lem. We need to estab­lish a uni­ver­sal health care sys­tem in this coun­try as well; I don’t like that the gov­ern­ment can fine you for not buy­ing insurance.”

Kayla Franzel
Junior, radiology

“My polit­i­cal views are hard to explain. I don’t know every­thing about pol­i­tics and I try and learn from peo­ple who are more edu­cated on the sub­ject. I feel peo­ple who know a lot about it can try and get across the more impor­tant points with­out all the fluff. I don’t think Obama should have passed his health­care bill; we need to get this county out of debt.”

Matthew Holt
First-year phar­macy student

“I would iden­tify myself as a lib­eral. I like lib­er­al­ism because I’m not a fan of help­ing out the big guy at the expense of the lit­tle guy. We really need to pro­tect our first amend­ment rights in this coun­try; his is some­thing which has been get­ting tram­pled on a lot.”

Timothy Burke
Sophomore, hotel and food indus­try management

“I would say I’m an inde­pen­dent and float between Republican and Democrat. I sup­ported Obama in 2008 but am more in favor of Ron Paul for 2012. I liked what Occupy Wall Street was doing but feel their time is over now. I think it’s very impor­tant that this coun­try adopt a non-interventionist for­eign pol­icy and return to a gold stan­dard currency.”

Anthony Peltier
Junior, marketing

“I think Democrats and Republicans are both hyp­o­crit­i­cal. You have Democrats talk­ing about social free­dom but not giv­ing any eco­nomic free­dom and Republicans talk­ing about eco­nomic free­dom but not giv­ing any social free­dom. Obama has just con­tin­ued the failed poli­cies of pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tions and peo­ple aren’t tak­ing a lik­ing to this. I’m sick of this con­tin­u­ous crony cap­i­tal­ism that has per­sisted through­out so many admin­is­tra­tions. Government pick­ing win­ners and losers based on which cor­po­ra­tions bought them out isn’t a free-market, bank bailouts aren’t free-market. We need more indi­vid­ual lib­erty in this coun­try, is there really a point in being safe if we aren’t free?”