Photo courtesy of Angelique Arintok
In today’s political climate, keeping ourselves well-informed and active in politics is at its utmost importance. Our country will never improve unless we vote in every election, contact our representatives at every level, watch, listen and read from reliable news sources. One of the ways I choose to do this is being a part of the news myself, reaching out to candidates and representatives to engage with them about issues on my own radio show.
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In the spring of 2017, my friend Erik started a political talk show on our student radio station, WGMU, called The Spin Room. The purpose of the show is to inform listeners about political and pop culture news, and also to learn more about politics ourselves by having guests on the show. So far, have reached out to many candidates who are running in this November’s election.
On October 10th, Erik and I had the amazing opportunity to interview both Dan Helmer and current Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam. Helmer is running against Barbara Comstock as representative for Virginia’s 10th congressional district, which includes Fairfax and students voting on-campus. We were able to discuss his viral campaign ad, gun control, and environmental issues.
Though it was only a 10-minute interview, Northam, who is currently running for Virginia Governor, was able to give us a glimpse into his plan to counter the rising tuition costs for Virginia college students. He listed several areas of improvement that the state could work on, stating “the state support from Richmond to our institutions of higher learning is not what it used to be. It’s gone down, in some cases to less than 10% of the budget.”
As a product of public schools in Virginia, Northam promised to make sure secondary education is affordable for students in the state of Virginia.
I’m so honored that we got this opportunity to speak with candidates running for both state and national government. Engaging in politics is extremely important to me and I hope we will continue to encourage other students to as well.