"everything is politics" (even love). Now I don't know that I agree completely with that, but I do think that if you have been alive 30+ years you ought to have a coherent political philosophy. I mean, how complicated is it to think, "Government should be small, therefore I don't want a handout program, even if it is for me (unless it is really, really juicy)," or "Government is how we collectively spend our money to achieve our goals. Some programs that individuals cannot accomplish are better done by governments that are properly regulated." Those would be pretty bare bones, and maybe the researcher would not think of those as fleshed-out philosophies, but were those that complicated?
Mike-n-Mallie