The air is thick with political tension these days – promise-making, speech-giving and mudslinging have all been at their grandest heights.

Politics can get messy, especially during election season, but that hasn’t kept some ISU students from getting their hands dirty.

A common theme among politically active ISU students is their desire for others to get involved in the political process somehow – regardless of party.

“It’s really important to have a good foundation in college as far as where you stand politically,” said Greta Johnson, who has been one of many student voices on campus urging students to get registered and be informed about today’s issues.

Johnson, freshman in political science, is on the education committee for the Freshman Council and gave a presentation there educating people about the importance of voting.

She also did some canvassing for the Republican Party, providing fellow students with information about gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle, Secretary of Agriculture candidate Bill Northey and Tom Latham, congressional candidate for Iowa’s 4th District.

Canvassing consists of going door-to-door and asking people if they’re registered to vote, giving them materials about his or her preferred candidates and encouraging them to do research on other candidates as well, Johnson said.

“I think regardless of your party, you should be educated on both sides,” Johnson said. For her, discussion is an important part of this process.

“Good, friendly debate is always good,” she said.

A couple of issues particularly at stake for this election, Johnson said, are taxes and education.

Since she’s a Christian, moral and ethical issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, are of perennial importance to her, Johnson said.

If someone is passionate about a particular issue or candidate, she said, he or she should take more of an active role by lobbying or volunteering, but voting is the basic place to begin with political involvement.

To those who might be cynical about politics, Johnson, who spent the second semester of her senior year in high school as a page in the Iowa House, would say that people in elected offices work hard to get things done for citizens.

Johnson acknowledged that corruption can and does occur, but she insisted that is precisely why people should be politically active.

“I can understand people not wanting to care because of all the things going on in government now, but that’s why you need to get involved. If you’re frustrated, you need to care,” she said.

“Too often we’re told not to talk politics,” said Robert Dick, graduate student in genetics, development and cell biology.

Simply having political conversations with people – on the phone or door-to-door – was a significant part of Dick’s work as a political volunteer, he said.

Dick helped with Democratic congressional candidate Seldon Spencer’s campaign this season and before that was active in Ed Fallon’s campaign during the gubernatorial primary before Fallon left the race.

Dick’s volunteer work with the Democratic Party this year and his previous involvement with activist groups such as the New Voters Project and Public Interest Research Groups were more concentrated on helping voters make informed decisions than on promoting specific candidates, he said.

Although he’d tell the people whom he supported, a lot of his conversations were aimed at getting people to register.

Dick also did some data entry at the Story County Democrats office and literature drops, which consist of dropping off printed materials about a candidate at houses. He said being active in Fallon’s campaign was a unique experience.

“I really believed in it,” he said. “He was the first candidate – and I believe he will be the last candidate – that will actually get me involved in partisan politics.”

It was because of Fallon that Dick got involved with Spencer’s campaign. Dick had gained respect for the people he’d worked with in Fallon’s campaign, he said, and many of them decided to work for Spencer after Fallon left the race.

He said Fallon was “one in a million” in his honesty, sense of hard work, varied background and sense of community. He didn’t think this year’s campaign was the last Iowans would see of Fallon.

This year, Dick said he is voting straight-ticket Democrat, despite a long-held dissatisfaction with America’s two-party system.

He said he’s “pretty unhappy about the way America is right now,” and would like to see a change.

Dick hasn’t been active in any campaign for several weeks – he said he got “burned out” – but he retains a fundamental belief in the importance of being informed.

“It takes not only an education to understand the issues, but it also takes a critical mind to sort through all the B.S.,” he said.

Traci Frisch, freshman in political science, has been another active contributor to Iowa’s political scene.

Frisch donated a large amount of her time to Story County supervisor candidate Gannon Hendrick, a Republican.

Frisch said she’s done “pretty much everything” a volunteer can do for his campaign.

Her activities included putting together yard signs, addressing and stuffing envelopes, setting up for Hendrick’s events, helping with fundraisers and doing literature drops.

On weekends, Frisch said she usually went home to help with the campaign for Mike Whalen, Republican congressional candidate for the 1st District.

Frisch doesn’t come from a highly political family, she said, but a government class in high school influenced her to be involved in politics.

Her parents, who are Democrats, never used to be active, she said, but she’s helped to change that.

“They’re voting this year, for sure,” Frisch said.

James VanBruggen, senior in political science, also comes from a politically low-key family. He said they’ve always voted, but it doesn’t usually go much further than that.

VanBruggen, a Democrat, also stands out from his roots in his ideological leanings; his parents – and many others in his hometown in northwestern Iowa – are Republicans.

VanBruggen is an intern with the Story County Democrats. He has been in the office or out in the community about 30 hours a week doing work for them this semester, he said.

His duties have included registering people to vote, putting up signs around town, phone calling, data entry and recruiting volunteers and interns.

“The closer to election day, the harder everything gets,” VanBruggen said. “You talk to 20, 30, 40 people a day you meet for the first time.”

A lot of benefits have come along with the job, he said, such as being able to go to the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner and meeting former president Bill Clinton.

VanBruggen has done a lot of canvassing, mostly targeting those who have already identified themselves as liberals when helping people register, he said.

“We don’t want to help out too many Republicans – not that I hate them,” VanBruggen said.

There is a public database that shows what party people have registered under, as well as if they’ve been active before, which VanBruggen and others like him use to identify people who will probably be sympathetic to their cause.

They’ve also used Facebook, he said.

VanBruggen said he thinks it’s important for students to be active in politics.

“Right now, we [students] don’t really get any attention,” he said.

Such things as decreased funding for education, however, make it necessary for students to contribute their voice, he said.

VanBruggen said as he went door-to-door canvassing in the dorms, he couldn’t help but have a strong emotional reaction when people told him they weren’t going to vote because they didn’t pay attention.

“They’ve got a computer sitting right there,” he said. “They can look up Web sites.”

To those who might say they’re overwhelmed by politics, VanBruggen advised finding a few issues that matter the most to you, and decide based on them or decide on someone who seems like a good leader.

“You’ve got to find out your own criteria to judge these people,” he said.