Students feel heat of debate

     The night before the Georgia primaries, a day known as “Super Tuesday,” as 24 states are holding their primaries that day, GCSU students held a mock presidential debate. 
     Sponsored by the College Republicans, Young Democrats and the American Democratic Project, an on-campus group that works to raise political activity among students, the debate featured five presidential candidates from both the Republican and Democrat parties. The debate was held to give the audience an accurate representation of the candidates and their opinions so that students would be able to make an informed vote.
     For the Democrats, Noah DeWalt represented Senator Barack Obama and Christina Cheatham spoke for Senator Hillary Clinton. Jason White, Mary Ford and Daniel Shey portrayed the Republican Senator John McCain, Governor Mitt Romney and Representative Ron Paul, respectively.
     The debate opened with representative students giving a brief description of their candidate. DeWalt as Obama started the debate by explaining that “There is one America and Barack Obama wants to be the president of that America.”  Shey, exemplifying Paul’s promises said, “I represent true change.”
     Debating began on the topic of the economy.  White expressed McCain’s support of cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent and said “Americans would save sixty billion dollars a year.”
     Clinton’s opinion, as expressed by Cheatham, about the economy was that “the Bush tax cuts will not be removed.”  Talk about oil fueled the debate with opinions such as Romney’s. Ford spoke about Romney’s support of the drilling for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) region of Alaska.
     Christopher Thibodeaux, the mediator of the debate, posed the question “What is your plan to get America off its foreign oil dependency?” to the pseudo-candidates. Cheatham presented Clinton’s plan to “reduce dependency by two-thirds by 2030.”  Ford countered by presenting McCain’s opinion to use tax credits to buy alternative fuel and fuel-efficient vehicles and his opposition of the ANWR drilling. Shey as Paul mentioned, “when the government interferes, problems come.”
The debate continued with the topic of healthcare. Clinton’s plan for mandatory universal healthcare would focus on prevention programs and cost over 100 billion dollars, according to Cheatham.
     DeWalt, as Obama, followed Cheatham’s explanation by saying that the real difference between his (Obama’s) and Clinton’s plan for healthcare is that Clinton forces Americans to buy into it. Ford expressed Romney’s plan for privatized healthcare.
     Next, immigration quickly became a priority topic to be discussed. White as McCain was very adamant about saying “we need to secure our borders” and that until we do “we will not be safe.”  Handling immigration issues is clearly a high priority for the McCain campaign. DeWalt gave Obama’s opinion that economy is at fault for the problems with illegal immigration. He also expressed that immigration needs to be controlled, and those doing so illegally need to be penalized for breaking the law.
     Also, the issue of a wall to secure the southern border of America was brought up. DeWalt shot down the idea of a wall, which is supported by Paul, Romney and McCain. DeWalt said, “building a wall is not a practical solution” and made a reference to the Great Wall of China.
     The final topic of the night, which was of the war in Iraq, was received heavy debate. White spoke for McCain saying,   “America won’t leave until we win.” Ford, representing    Romney, agreed saying, “we have created a democracy and we are learning from our mistakes.” DeWalt, representing Obama, disagreed. He said that “this is an illegal war, an immoral war and unethical war.” As far as solutions go, Obama’s plans for a sixteen-month withdrawal being “as careful getting out as careless as we were getting in.”
     The debate closed with a simple question: Do you feel that we are better off now or eight years ago. Ford as Romney said that “in eight years a lot of things have improved.” McCain’s representative, White gave a similar statement about the lowest unemployment rate in the last thirty years and the lower inflation rate. Shey, speaking for Paul said “to think that we are better off is absolutely ridiculous” and that “homes have been  broken because of this unnecessary war.”
     After the debate a short Q & A session took place. Jose Guerra asked about immigration saying that he as a Hispanic was “offended and appalled” by the idea of building a wall along the Mexican border. Guerra also explained the environmental and cultural problems that go a long with a wall.
     After the debate, Mary Ford said that she felt the debate went well and that with the forty-plus attendees, there were more people there then she had expected.
     Freshman early education major Hannah Callaway attended the debate and said that it reinforced her opinion. She was not very surprised. She has decided to vote for Romney. Will Jones of the Young Democrats said that he hopes that the debate will influence others to vote Democrat. We will let the votes speak for themselves.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 8 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry