NMU students debate key political issues
Carson Lemahieu
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: News
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The event, hosted by the NMU Political Review, drew a near-capacity crowd to Jamrich 103 to watch a panel of three Republicans and three Democrats debate issues regarding the current political climate and the upcoming presidential election.
The questions were formulated prior to the debate by the Progressive Students Roundtable and were asked by debate moderators political science professor William Ball and philosophy professor David Cooper.
The economy was a theme that endured in the panelists' answers throughout the evening.
"This trickle-down effect that has been a proven failure is now being revisited by conservative administrations and I doubt that they will be more effective now," Lauren Mattioli, junior pre-law and philosophy major and member of the College Democrats, said in response to how a democratic candidates strategy would differ from that of John McCain.
College Republican President and senior secondary education major Kyle Bonini responded by saying that republican policies towards the economy were a sound strategy for moving America forward.
"Whether the Democrats want to admit it or not, the economy has changed," Bonini said. "We need jobs for the 21st century, not the 18th and 19th centuries."
Another issue that was brought up several times during the debate was the Iraq War. The democratic panel favored an immediate exit strategy with all troops out of Iraq by the year 2013, while the Republican panel favored remaining in Iraq until stability can be achieved.
"4,003 servicemen have been killed in Iraq, over 90,000 innocent Iraqis (have been) killed, and it has a price tag of almost $2 trillion," Democratic panelist Cameron Fure said. "When Republicans always say that all Democrats want to do is spend, spend, spend, we should look at that $2 trillion figure."
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