What do you think Republican Presidential Candidate Senator John McCain will focus on in his campaign?

“What I see a lot so far is talking about experience, and who would be the best candidate to step in as commander-in-chief. I know McCain has been saying a lot about the way he’s been in the military and through a lot of the political systems of our country, so he’s going to boast a lot about experience. I think another point from McCain’s point of view is going to be making a change within the Republican Party, meaning he wants to make change but a different change than what Obama’s trying to speak because he’s in the same party as George W. Bush. He’s trying to still have that Republican point of view, but at the same time bring a change as far as new ideas, especially since he’s got Vice President [nominee] Palin and all of her dealings that she’s had in bringing down government monopolies.”

-Matt Larson, DeKalb resident

“Offshore drilling and drilling here. I think he’ll try to make Sarah [Palin] look a lot better than she’s looking right now. She needs to build her credit a little bit more. I think he wants to continue the war and maybe not take so much from Bush. He wants to separate himself from Bush. [The Republican Party] is going to have to focus on what they’re going to change and make things more people-friendly.”

-Jackie Trier, junior journalism major

“What I’ve seen so far of him is that he follows a lot of the policies of President Bush. So if you could just look at the presidency as it is now, he supports it, and he’s going to apply the same policies and same issues. From the debates and some of the things I saw, he doesn’t focus on education that much, which is a really big, important thing to me. As far as the troops and everything in Iraq, he doesn’t want to pull them out. He’s going with Bush and…the whole thing about supporting the War in Iraq, our troops and pulling them out, I really think he’s going to try to convince people that we are in there for the right reason and he’s trying to get followers on that opinion.”

-Alyssa Ford, sophomore nursing major

“I believe that he’s going to focus on the war. I think he will, of course, do his best to downplay the Democratic Party. I think he’s going to talk about finances and wanting to improve the economy. He’s going to try and make Sarah Palin look as worthy as he can [for] vice president candidacy. I think their interest in overseas policy will mainly be trying to stomp out terrorists. I don’t know if he’s going to be so much interested in diplomacy or rebuilding our connections or bridge with other countries. I don’t think that’s going to be his focus.”

-Carnessca Tillman, counseling graduate student