Clay Verga feels Obama was dealt a raw hand.

“(He) gets blamed for a lot of things that are not up to him,” said the first year architecture student.

Verga knows the country’s biggest weakness is its economy — “It’s hard to put anything ahead of the economy” — but also feels it often takes more than one term for a president to have the fullest impact on the country.

Verga’s OSU classmates, however, disagree.

Eighty-six percent of OSU students surveyed in an online UWeekly poll said their biggest concern heading into the fall’s general election is the economy. And 72 percent of surveyed students said they’d elect someone other than Obama in this fall’s general election.

Mitt Romney was the top vote getter in the poll, with 45 percent, while Ron Paul garnered 25 percent. Newt Gingrich didn’t receive a vote.

On the heels of last week’s State of the Union address by Obama, OSU students, it seems, feel the president isn’t doing enough to revive a struggling economy. That comes even as half of all OSU students surveyed said they felt the current state of the United States is slowly improving. The other half of those surveyed said the country is treading water or becoming weaker. Hardly encouraging for Obama.

Further survey results show 32 percent view Obama’s time in office so far very favorably or somewhat favorably, while 46 percent of those surveyed view his term so far as somewhat poorly or very poorly.

Chris Youssefi, a fourth year majoring in engineering physics and nuclear engineering, has only had one job interview in three months, which is a “staggeringly” lower number than he expected to have upon entering college.

“I’m not big on politics,” he said, “(but) some issues have really been affecting me.”

The economy, he said, is one of the big factors in why he’ll vote for Paul.

Paul Beck, an OSU professor of political science, said the nation’s economic standing is, simply, the most important thing in this coming election.

“The economy trumps everything,” Beck said. “The other issues are important, but not as important.”

Beck said the nation’s economy is so vital to this election that you’d have to go back to the 1936 election, which was held in the midst of the Great Depression, to find a similar one.

Voters, Beck said, will, additionally, be looking for a few other qualities when deciding whom to vote for in November. Among those are leadership, ambition and how the president proposes to deal with the problems going forward within what the nation can afford.

Beck sees Obama’s challenges as multi-pronged: How to spark a recovery; how to contribute as much as a government can, while limiting the burden on an already growing federal debt; and how to cope with Europe’s own financial problems.

“There’s been a lot of debate on whether the stimulus worked,” Beck said. “It’s obvious it didn’t work enough, but it did create jobs. States cut jobs, about a billion, operating counter-cyclically while federal government created jobs. Since this job creation was undercut by state legislation, it wasn’t effective.”

Still, more students than just Verga will vote for Obama, some for the same reasons.

“I haven’t seen his promise fulfilled,” said Jonathan Joo. “But I am more reluctant to give him a second chance. If he fixes things, then that would be great. But if not, I would be really angry.”

OSU student James Harris said he’s leaning toward Obama, too.

“I find his competitors to be lacking for a real plan,” he said. “Except for Gingrich’s colony on the Moon, that’s absolute genius.”

Joey Dillon, a third year communications major, said the economy’s still improving, which is one reason why Obama will get his support.

“He’s done a fine job, even though things could be better,” he said. “It’s hard to fix what the previous eight years have built up. I think we’re getting near a positive turn, but it takes time.”

Jerry Rowlands, a third year biology student, said Obama is doing poorly, even with the economy slowly improving.

“It’s between a few people, but I’m still undecided,” he said. “Our biggest weakness right now is the fact that we haven’t found something that works”

Anthony Lagunzad, a first year public affairs student, agreed with many OSU students when he said the state of the union “is pretty poor economically.”

The president’s state of the union address last week wasn’t enough to sway his opinion, he said.

“Obama was just saying what people want to hear, not presenting options that are feasible,” he said.

It would be too early for him to say whom he’d vote for if the election were today, he said, but if Herman Cain were vice president with Gingrich, that’s who he’d vote for.

OSU student Steven Moell’s vote will go to Paul, but not because of any specific political issue.

“I’m (just) sick of the two-party system having control for so long,” he said.

Mohammed Mohammed, meanwhile, is voting for Paul because of his foreign policy approach.

“I like his hands-off approach,” he said.

UWeekly writer Ashley Fournier contributed.