With the democratic debate airing last Tuesday night on CNN and the presidential election of 2016 getting closer, students are beginning to learn more about the candidates, and the majority of those surveyed have pledged their support to democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Sanders received the majority of the support with 21 percent of claiming they support his campaign. Ben Carson was the runner-up in the survey, with 10 percent of the vote. Donald Trump received 7 percent and Hillary Clinton had 5 percent of votes.
KSU students seem to be drawn to the fact that Sanders is promising free tuition in public colleges and universities, substantially lower interests rates on student loans and free health care. These promises are appealing to the average financially disadvantaged student who is crippling under increasing tuition.
“He has a very good idea of how to provide social needs for people,” James Lawrence, a junior geography major said. “Poverty is one of the biggest things in this country.”
Sanders is also getting attention because of his plans to combat climate change, end pay inequality and manage the greed of pharmaceutical companies as well as the top one percent of Americans.
In addition to the democratic, liberal and socialist supporters, Sanders is even able to receive the support of some republicans. 40 percent of KSU students claim to be republicans. However, more than half of these republicans either support no candidate or support a democratic candidate.
This is partly because they agree with the stances of some democratic candidates, but it is also because the republicans at KSU do not want to see Trump as the next president.
“Donald Trump, in my opinion, is a bigot and has no idea what he’s talking about as far as immigration and social welfare go,” Lawrence said.
“If Trump is the Republican candidate, I might vote democratic,” Kaylie Parker, a senior communications major and Republican said.
The republicans who are voting within their party are supporting Carson.
Parker said she likes Carson’s views on education and his stance on gun laws. Carson supports local control as opposed to federal involvement when it comes to education and believes that the second amendment should remain protected. In addition to these issues, Carson also would like to rid the country of the Affordable Care Act, keep Guantanamo Bay detention camp open and provide pro-life services.
As for the politically involved students who are not supporting Carson, Sanders, Trump, or Clinton, they are either supporting Marco Rubio (3 percent), Carly Fiorina (1 percent) or Jeb Bush (1 percent). The remainder of the students (48 percent), however, are undecided.
“I don’t keep up with politics that much because I feel like it’s a bunch of talk.” Kaitlyn Ball, a senior psychology major, said. “I feel like a lot of the time politicians will say a lot of stuff, but they can’t back it up.”
In addition to this reasoning, some students believe it is too early to begin to keep up with the political debate, while others admit that they are just not interested in politics. Some students said that they would like to be more informed, but feel as though they do not have the time to keep up with politics.
Timothy Kersey, a political science professor at KSU, urges students that staying up-to-date with politics is crucial.
“It impacts them way more than they know, from everything from student loans to the job market that they’ll eventually enter to the value of a degree,” Kersey said. “It’s all political whether or not they realize it.”
He continued to say the 2016 election is actually the perfect time for students to become more involved and form their own political identity.
“The 18 to 25-year-old demographic is the largest eligible voter block and if they wanted to, they could run the election, and I hope they realize that,” Kersey said.
Many students are learning to keep up-to-date with politics by simply following the candidates on social media. Students can also follow news sources on social media such as CNN Politics, Politico, NowThis Politics and PolitiFact. Each candidate also has their own website explaining their stances on the issues and their biography. Lastly, watching the debates is a good way to learn about the candidates.
Eleven percent of students watched the debate that aired last Tuesday night on CNN. The students who saw it said it was insightful and helped them decide which candidate to support.
Anderson Cooper, the host of the debate, along with others, fired away hard questions at the democratic candidates. The questions covered topics such as planned parenthood, black lives matter , gun control and, of course, Clinton’s emails and the Benghazi committee.
“I believe in a society where all people do well,” Sanders said during the debate. “Not just a handful of billionaires.”
“He’s the people’s choice,” Claira Klauder, a junior human services major, said. “He is for the starving college students. He’s for social welfare. He’s for higher minimum wage.”
Unfortunately, the Republican establishment, are not Tea
Party Constitutionalists–but they are currently in control of Capitol Hill. The
real Conservative branch are struggling to find a candidate for Speaker of the
house. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has dropped his bid as being unsuccessful
in achieving enough votes, seeing his adviser the prior Speaker John Boehner is
finally retiring. A number of names have
surfaced as potential successors to John Boehner and not another Professional
class politician elected to Speaker of the House? Nor a Paul Ryan who is NOT a
Constitutionalist, to any extent of the word. We need the People’s speaker of
the House.
Yesterday we
saw the Democratic war lords crush a law that would end the scourge and impediment
to federal ‘Sanctuary Cities’ even after the hue and cry of Kate Steinle, young
women, murdered by an illegal alien in
the Liberalized city of San Francisco. But this is just one citizen
murdered by a foreign national who had not been deported. However their are
many more crimes hidden from public view by the biased mainstream press.
Democrats
are still holding the high ground on illegal immigration as this administration
has done little to stem the interlopers; draining our welfare services,
stealing jobs that belong to US citizens and lawful immigrants. The
Democrat Party zealots are ignoring our Constitution and with intent aiding and
abetting the illegal invasion of our Country. Do millions of people know it is
a violation of Title 8 Section 1324 United States Code “aiding, abetting,
encouraging, harboring, transporting, and hiring illegal aliens is a
felony.” Also Title 18 Section 611 US Code forbids non citizens from
voting in our election. Citizens must be vigilant in any election, caucus and
finally the general election. The Democrats will plead ignorance that illegal
aliens don’t vote, but this coming presidential election is critical to America’s
future that the authorities use every method available to stop this travesty to
our Democracy. If non citizens vote in a close race, it would be a catastrophe
to the election system.
Under the regime of His Royal highness Barack Obama he
has sold America
down the road. IRAN
stands out as a $150 Billion loadstone to a terrorist,
religious, fanatical nation. Leaving the Jewish state to fend for itself,
knowing the danger is real. Judicial Watch announced today that it
has obtained
records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force revealing that
Barack Obama’s February and March 2015 travel for golf vacations and
fundraisers totaled $4,436,245.50 in taxpayer-funded transportation
expenses. Donald Trump needs nothing from the Federal Coffers; he doesn’t
need a salary as President and what seems elusive to the Democrats is Trump is
completely free from powerful donors, who buy votes from individual corrupt
lawmakers. Judicial Watch writes The Obama administration insists the southern
border is secure, yet dozens of illegal aliens from terrorist nations entered
the United States
through Mexico and
are being held in a Texas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing
center.
As I see ahead, with Donald Trump taking head-on
multinational corporations that profits from taking workers jobs overseas and
their installations as well such as Ford auto manufacturing, Nabisco mega
companies; each entity will have to pay a 35 percent tariff on products, parts
until America is presented with a balanced playing field, called true Fair
Trade–not what exists now with Mexico, China and a host of other foreign
countries. That’s just one terrific proposal that will regenerate 100s of
billions of dollars for our country, instead of adding to our countries riches
being procured to foreign nations. To supplement our national security to once
again build a frontier wall; then towering above Russia and China’ s military,
a United States armed forces to be proud of, not another Pentagon Decimation under
Obama’s policies; then reinvesting in every Veteran full care, instead of being
treated as a second class citizen, while illegal immigrants are catered too.
Immigration laws will be once again strictly enforced and
Trump will instruct Homeland Security and ICE to implement a port of entry/exit tracking system and the
National MANDATORY E-VERIFY system. IT will serve as a deterrent against
business owner who insist of using unauthorized labor. No more OPTIONAL hiring
and company owners can go to prison, while illegal workers will be deported.
Mechanisms against welfare and cheap labor will be stemmed the tide of Overstays’ who lie giving the impression to Customs and Immigration that
they are just visitors. That under new immigrants classifications they must be
(STEM) skilled workers and not cradle to deliberate welfare seekers.