With just a few weeks short of the 2016 presidential election, the KSU Political Science Club and the College Libertarians Club collectively held an open student presidential debate on from on Oct 18, 2016 from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., the day before the final presidential debate.
Members of the Political Science Club and the College Libertarians Club were given an opportunity to choose the presidential candidate whose ideology and policies they are the most passionate and knowledgeable about and represent them in a open floor debate with an audience of their peers and political science classmates.
This event was meant to promote awareness of the upcoming president election and allow the opportunity for students, who may not have fully decided on a candidate, to learn more about each of the candidates in a more comfortable and peer involved setting.
Patrick Gruber, a political science major, represented democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Javid Ona and Nick Barnes, both founders of the College Libertarians Club, respectively represented libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. Zach McDowell, a political science major represented the green presidential candidate Jill Stein. McDowell stepped into the debate from the audience to fill the seat of the intended representative to originally represent republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who became unavailable.
Each representative were gave an introductory speech and the beginning of the debate, summarizing their the ideals of their candidate and the reason behind their advocacy of their choice presidential candidate.
The policy debate immediately followed and consisted of the moderator appointing predetermined key topics to the representatives. The representatives then reflected on the concerns with the same policies and beliefs as their chosen president candidates. Each candidate were given 1 minute to address each topic with 30 seconds to make any rebuttals. The moderator, would intervene to cease any discussions that extended past the time limit.
The representatives debated on issues that revolved around foreign affairs and policy, domestic issues, such as gay rights and racial tensions, and social issues. They also largely debated with each other on the flaws of any of their presidential counterparts. The debate ended with a Q&A that opened the floor to students to address additional concerns not previously listed by the moderator, in which the representative answered in the same manner and with the same time restrictions.
Ona reflected on the performance of his competitors in conclusion of the debate. “You can tell there was a lot of people very knowledgeable about the subject. I think Patrick did very well in representing Hillary and it was very fun,” he said.
Election day is Tuesday, Nov 8, 2016 and poll hours are from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
