With the Bush administration coming to an end this year and the presidential elections approaching in November, are area college students at neighboring colleges paying attention to what is going on in the primaries?Surveys conducted at Middlebury College and Green Mountain College in Poultney offered mixed results. Despite their abundant voting power, some students didn’t plan to partake in the electoral process while others were eager to vote.

When asking students at Middlebury College what they would be doing on Nov. 4, Election Day, Ria Shroff, a junior stated that she didn’t know yet, that she was “probably just hanging out with a bunch of friends.”

Another Middlebury College junior, Craig McCarthy from New Jersey, said he too won’t be part of the election process.

“I won’t be voting, I’ll be at school and I’m not registered to vote at my school,” he said.

When asked more detailed questions about presidential candidates’ ideals and strategies for changing the country, all students interviewed realized they haven’t paid enough attention to the primaries. Questions asked ranged from exit strategies to the environment to financial stability in the future.

One student, an exchange student from Bosnia, however, seemed more in tune with American politics than her classmates — even though she cannot vote or really have any say in who our leader is. Sophomore Marina Pravdic said she pays attention to the primaries and what happens on the news “more than my American friends.”

At Green Mountain College, there appeared to be more political awareness and a phenomenon called Ron Paul Fever. Every student interviewed had something to say about this long shot Republican candidate. When asked what they were doing on Nov. 4, every student said “voting.”

Many GMC students were passionate when asked about the slate of candidates they had to choose from.

Chris Anca, a freshman, blurted out that the list of candidates “sucks.”

“Ron Paul won’t win. Barack is Black, and Hillary is a bitch,” he said. “The way the country is right now, nobody wants another Republican in the office. A Black man really could never win, and Hillary isn’t the right woman for the job.”

Asked whether they talk with their friends about politics, Jackson Casey, a GMC freshman and the student who seemed to know the most about the primaries and the presidential candidates, said he really doesn’t.

“When it comes to my friends, I let them figure that (stuff) out on their own,” he said.

His roommate, Max Chase, then chimed in “but that’s because everybody is just talking about whether or not Ron Paul is going to win or not.