Pitt student could interview 2004 presidential candidate

John Ulrich just wanted to vote.

Now, students have the opportunity to vote for him…. John Ulrich just wanted to vote.

Now, students have the opportunity to vote for him.

Ulrich, a Pitt student who studies philosophy, had been selected as one of 10 yahoo.com college students competing for the chance to interview the 2004 presidential candidates before the election.

“I’m hoping that it’s interesting to everybody, because [the presidential election] affects everyone,” Ulrich said of the competition.

Voting, which begins today and runs until the end of April, is based on the three-question interviews that the 10 candidates, along with thousands of other college students, answered when the Declare Yourself college tour visited their campuses between January and March. The Declare Yourself tour, which stopped at 19 schools across the country, brought the original copy of the Declaration of Independence, voter registration forms and spoken word artists along for the tour, in addition to the yahoo.com interview team.

Hoping to represent Pitt before the presidential candidates, Ulrich — a sophomore from Wexford, outside of Pittsburgh — believes he understands many of the issues facing college students.

“I think that I really am representative of college students — I come from a middle-class family; I worked hard in school; I played sports,” he explained. “I pay a lot of attention to issues that are important to people our age.”

He added that, if selected, he would seek from Pitt students their suggested questions for the presidential candidates.

“I don’t know if I could think of the best questions by myself,” said Ulrich.

All student candidates answered the same questions, which Ulrich faced when the tour visited Pitt on March 25. Students were asked to explain why they believe it is important to vote, to describe a moment in their lives when really they felt or valued their freedom, and to speculate on how the Internet will change voting and the election this year.

Ulrich’s video response, along with the videos of the other candidates, can be accessed at vote.yahoo.com, where viewers can also vote for their favorite student candidates.