Newsweek Interns
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Jun 11, 2007 02:24 PM
By Ruth Olson
It would be stating the obvious
to say that Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a lot of
support at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. But the former
Massachusetts governor isn't the only pol drawing support on the campus
of 27,000 full-time undergraduate students, 98 percent of them members
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
David Garber,
a BYU student from Virginia, recently started a club to promote the
candidacy of Republican Ron Paul. The group isn't an official campus
club yet, so his activities have been limited. Garber admits it has
been somewhat difficult getting started; so far he has half a dozen
members in his group. "We're pretty optimistic," says Garber, who
believes Paul's policies are a better fit with mainstream Utah values
than Romney's.
Lauren Clough, who's heading up a group in
support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, says the school
administration has been supportive, but that doesn't always hold true
of the students. "It is hard, and it can be frustrating, because people
can be mean about it," she says. But then again, she said, she's always
liked a challenge.
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