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Media Credit: Bethany Baker Communication graduate student Colin Pizarek raises his hand to participate in the discussion that followed Friday night's presidential debate showing in Cunningham Memorial Library.

Even though it was a Friday night, ISU community members gathered in Cunningham Memorial Library to watch the first presidential debate of 2008.

This year is the second election in a row that ISU has held debate watches and discussions.

"The main reason why these discussions take place are to reflect upon the debate," said Darlene Hantzis, professor of communication and women's studies and the campus coordinator for the American Democracy Project, at the beginning of the debate. She said watching the debate in this forum and discussing it afterwards helps people watch the debates more intelligently.

The American Democracy Project's goal is to "produce graduates who understand and are committed to engaging in meaningful actions as citizens in a democracy" as stated on the American Democracy Project on ISU's Web page.

The discussion immediately after the debate touched on many topics about the debate, including the format and the questions and responses.



The format of the debate was a little different this year. The presidential nominees were allowed to speak directly to each other and encouraged to do so, unlike previous years when this was not allowed.

Students discussed the way the candidates chose to respond to questions and to each other.

Certain things like Sen. John McCain's "Senator Obama doesn't understand" and Sen. Barack Obama's "you were wrong," caused many of the attendees to perceive their manner as offensive or childish.

David Perkins, a senior music education major said, "Both of them were in bad taste to talk to the other like they didn't know the facts when they were both clearly equal in the knowledge of them."

Another thing brought up in the discussion about this debate was the topics. Each debate has a set main topic and this debate was supposed to be all about foreign policy, although the first three questions were about economy in relation to current events.

ISU history professor David Nichols said that he thought this forum was useful for "ordinary citizens to see the debate and discuss it in an unfiltered way without the media, who profess to be objective."

Hantzis turned off the debate as soon as it was over so the viewers wouldn't hear the opinions of the media commentary before the discussion about the debate.

Brittany Faulkner, a sophomore accounting and business management major, also said that it was an important point to turn off the debate once it was over and carry on a separate discussion so people's opinions were not influenced by the media.

( Jessica Squires is a freshman communication major. She can be reached at sascamed@isugw.indstate.edu.)

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