Local high schoolers support a variety of candidates
While some San Benito High School students are fully engaged in
the upcoming primary election, many are less informed based on
recent interviews with eight students after school, on Monterey
Street and Nash Road. Some are eligible to vote in this election,
and others will be eligible by the next Presidential primary.
Local high schoolers support a variety of candidates
While some San Benito High School students are fully engaged in the upcoming primary election, many are less informed based on recent interviews with eight students after school, on Monterey Street and Nash Road. Some are eligible to vote in this election, and others will be eligible by the next Presidential primary.
Students who will be eligible to vote in this election were more excited about the election than those who have a few years to wait to cast their votes.
Allyson Acosta, 18, was excited to be able to vote in the presidential primary election.
“Yeah, I am,” she said, “Because I don’t like George Bush and all that.”
Acosta will probably vote for Barack Obama, she said.
“I like a lot of his views,” Acosta said. “Hopefully he’ll change a lot of things like he says he will and bring the troops back.”
She learned about the candidates from her San Benito High School government class with Mitch Huerta, she said.
To Acosta, the most important issues were the Iraq war and gay marriage, she said.
Serena Jordan, 18, agreed that those are the most important issues.
She does not know whom she will vote for, she said. Other than their names, she said she doesn’t know a lot about them.
“They don’t talk about it in high school enough,” she said. “I hear my teachers talk about them, how they speak, and that’s it.”
Jimene Barocio, 16, still has a couple years before she can vote and she doesn’t know whom she would choose.
Barocio is not following the election because she can’t vote, she said.
When Barocio is eligible to vote, she will probably register democratic, she said.
James Connor, 17, cannot vote in the primary, but will be eligible to vote in the November election.
In the primary, he would vote for Rudolph Giuliani, Connor said. Giuliani dropped out of the race after losing in Florida to John McCain this week.
“I think he’s going to at least try to solve the problem with illegal aliens,” Connor said. “I just don’t want to see Hillary or Obama.”
Due to her stance on the economy, Hillary Clinton, “scares me to death,” he said.
“It’s not that I’m against Obama. I’m pro Giuliani,” Connor said.
Connor learned about the candidates from Bill O’Reilly, Fox News, and the morning television news, he said. The most important issue is “illegal aliens,” he said.
Isiah Avina, 16, does not want Clinton or Obama to win the presidential election either, he said.
Asked why, Avina said that they would be assassinated.
“If any of them get elected, they are going to die,” he said. “Come on, the first female or black president?”
Avina would vote for Rudolph Giuliani or John Edwards, he said. Both candidates have dropped out of the race.
He learned about the candidates from history classes and television news, he said.
He does not think that the next president will change anything, he said.
“I think they’re just BS-ing,” Avina said, “and once they’re in office, they’ll do whatever they want.”
Asked if they thought the next president would change things Carlos Vargas and Erik Ruiz, both 15, said, “No.”
“I think the next president will change a lot,” Ashford said, “because Bush is a failure. He is a failed president.”
Ashford would vote for Clinton or Obama, he said.
“I want Hillary Clinton to win because she’s a girl,” Ashford said. “Or Obama because he’s black.”
He hopes that the next president will bring the troops home because he does not, “want to be drafted and have to shoot people,” he said.
Vargas would vote for Hillary Clinton, “because she’s a girl and there’s never been a girl president.”
Ruiz would vote for Obama.
“I don’t know who he is,” Ruiz said, “but he sounds cool.”
When informed that Obama is black, Ruiz said that he would vote for Obama.
“There hasn’t been a black president,” he said.
