by Joseph Brown
The Presidential debate that took place in the Cabot Auditorium last week was not unlike the real Presidential debates between the former candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. With the exception of the participants involved, the Tufts debate was practically identical in terms of style, questions, and responses. The addition of a socialist representative added some excitement to the otherwise uneventful debate. Each representative took turns, under an allotted period of time, to answer the questions posed and respond to the critical comments thrown at them from their opponents.
The questions naturally revolved around the current issues of importance: the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, gay marriage, health care, stem cell research and the like dominated.
Each representative’s response bore a striking resemblance to what his or her candidate would have and did say in their own responses during the recent televised debates. Unfortunately, the Tufts debate did not succeed in uncovering any new details of the candidates’ respective platforms. Its main accomplishment was giving the students involved in the debate a chance to show off their knowledge and familiarity with their respective candidates’ views.
A question about the Patriot Act prompted Democrat Jonathan Parnes to explain that he in fact supports the act, but wants certain changes made to it. On gay marriage/civil unions, Parnes was unsure of whether to push for full marriage rights or just civil unions. The Democratic representative also used the familiar John Kerry campaign phrase, “an America for all Americans” when describing his party’s proposal for equal treatment of gays and immigrants. When asked about his feelings toward Senator Kerry’s infamous “flip-flopping” techniques and his poor record in the Senate, he offered a number of legislative proposals that the Senator had pushed for. These included amendments to reduce the national deficit and campaigns to try to close loopholes allegedly used by large corporations to dodge taxes.
The debate was made more interesting by the addition of a Socialist Party representative who argued in favor of Ralph Nader. Daniel DiMaggio argued strongly against both the opinions of the Republican and Democratic parties in a series of rants that promoted peace and pollution reduction. The Socialist representative voiced his support for a change in the electoral process, claiming that both the conservative and liberal candidates were intimidating people from voting for Ralph Nader, and that he felt his party was being shut out by the larger and more popular materialistic parties. All of his responses carried the familiar themes of giving “power to the people,” ending the war in Iraq, and protecting the environment by means of conservation and “clean energy” programs. He offered no ways to accomplish this, but assured the audience that “the technology is out there.” When asked about raising tuition fees in congruence with economic inflation, his only response was that everybody ought to have an equal right to an education provided by the government. To this end, he insists that war spending be cut and diverted toward educational purposes.
The Republican representative was on the defensive, with most of the questions eliciting responses from her opponents that evolved into spiteful criticisms of President Bush’s policies thus far. Kristen Casazza shot down questions suggesting changes in current policy. Seeing no need to alter the President’s policy on foreign oil dependency, for example, she made the point that even the idea of using solar energy requires oil, so our dependence would remain unchanged. Casazza backed the current Electoral College system, explaining that any change would require a constitutional amendment and unfairly reduce the influence of smaller states. Casazza pointed to the September 11 attacks in justifying the American prosecution of the War on Terror—a war forced upon the country, not one adopted by choice, she reminded audience members. Casazza painted it as a battle of good versus evil, and a battle in which America was protecting the prosperity of the world.
The views expressed were generic and easily recognizable to those following the candidates’ positions. No new information was divulged, except that Kristen Casazza, Jonathan Parnes, and Daniel DiMaggio are all either highly opinionated or very savvy when it comes to memorizing their respective candidate platforms.
Mr. Brown is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
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