For adult students at Lehman College, in the Bronx, and LaGuardia Community College, in Queens, the separation between politics and daily life seems practically invisible. Both colleges are part of the 23-campus CUNY system, where more than two in five of the nearly 197,000 students are 23 and older. For most of these students, it is nearly impossible to speak about politics without reflecting on some of their most maddening day-to-day experiences as members of New York's working class. For every policy proposal floated by candidates, students have testimonies from their life experiences to shed light on why the idea would or would not work, and it is often the most painful experiences that carry the most weight, whether it is opposition to the war, increased educational financial assistance, or concerns for health-care benefits. In this article, Student comments are included, as well as a combined sense of frustration with a national media perceived as dwelling too little on the policies and platforms that would affect working Americans.