Student Senate Elections Commission hosts debate
Presidential and vice presidential candidates will participate
The third debate of the semester will allow candidates to discuss issues with students.
By Luke Morris (Contact)
Friday, April 4th, 2008
Students curious about Student Senate coalitions’ issues and stances will have another opportunity to hear from each coalition’s presidential and vice presidential candidates at today’s Student Senate debate.
The Student Senate Elections Commission is playing host to the debate, which is at 5 p.m. in Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
“We’re not expecting a lot of people to come, but we hope some of the issues brought up in previous debates will get a closer look,” said Rohit Venkatasubban, Student Senate Elections commissioner.
Coalitions already participated in two debates this semester, one hosted by The University Daily Kansan and one hosted by Kansas Athletics. Despite this, presidential candidates said that they were not sick of debating their issues and platforms.
What: Student Senate debate presented by Student Senate Elections Commission
When: 5 p.m. today
Where: Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union
Who: Presidential and vice presidential candidates
“We want to have as many opportunities as possible to present the issues,” said Austin Kelly, Connect’s presidential candidate. “If people wanted us to debate every other day, we would.”
United Students’ presidential candidate Adam McGonigle said that debates provided another line of communication with students.
“I think the best thing we can do and we’ve been trying to do this semester is talking to students,” McGonigle said. “By doing that you find out what they think is important to them.”
Venkatasubban said the debate’s format would be similar to previous debates’. It will feature a panel asking the candidates questions. Presidential and vice presidential candidates will answer the panel’s questions together as a coalition.
“It’ll follow up on things that happened in the last two debates or weren’t covered in the first two,” Venkatasubban said.
Students of Liberty presidential candidate Adam Wood said that he hoped this debate would allow candidates an opportunity to comment on other coalitions’ platforms.
“In previous debates, we only got to talk about our own platforms,” Wood said. “I’d like to hear what United Students and Connect think about our platform.”
All three candidates said they had similar game plans going into the debate. Each wanted to discuss their platforms and prove their sincerity to them.
“I feel confident that we can answer questions completely without extensively preparing because there are things we want to bring we really care about,” Kelly said.
Wood said that his preparation included looking at statistics regarding various issues, but that his answers were candid.
“I just go up there and say what I think,” Wood said. “I think that’s why we come off like we do.”
— Edited by Jared Duncan
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