"Presidential Question and Answer Time," sponsored by the "One Sweet Vote" initiative brought Republican Bill Coley and Democrat Jerry Meek to the Great Hall Monday night to discussion key political issues.
The sounds of heated political discourse echoed off the walls of the Great Hall Monday night as students, armed with questions about key issues surrounding the 2004 presidential election, gathered for a discussion with representatives from the state Republican and Democratic parties.
The event, called “Presidential Question and Answer Time,” was the first in a series of activities organized as a part of the “One Sweet Vote” initiative—a campus-wide campaign sponsored by the Residence Life and Housing Services that aims to promote student interest in the November election. Melissa Bixler, a GA in Craven Quad and one of the panel’s organizers, said the goal of Monday night’s event was to reach out to both students and politicians in an attempt to encourage dialogue between the two groups.
“College students are notoriously left out of the loop when it comes to being addressed by the candidates,” Bixler said. “This is an opportunity for the Republicans and the Democrats to first of all, show up and say, ‘We are interested in what you have to say,’ and secondly, ‘Your input is important to us in making decisions.’”
The two guest panelists—Jerry Meek, Trinity ’92 and current vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and Bill Cobey, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a recent candidate for the North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nomination—sat facing the audience of about 80 people. Each panelist began with a brief description of his respective party, but the students quickly turned the dialogue from the abstract to the concrete, making Iraq the linchpin of the evening’s discussion.
Sophomores David Cardenas and Adam Mintz both questioned Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and President George W. Bush’s planned courses of action in the Middle East. Meek said that in contrast to the current administration, Kerry plans to engage international allies in negotiations and reconstruction efforts.
“You can’t have this cowboy running around the world acting like the U.S. rules the world,” Meek said, criticizing Bush’s foreign policies. “This is a unilateralist president.... But that’s not the way you work and operate as a nation in the 21st century.”
Cobey countered Meek’s remarks with an argument in support of the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, dismissing the accusation that it should not have acted without the support of the United Nations. “The U.N. is a wonderful debate in society, but it’s a toothless tiger,” he said.
Cobey also argued that the decision to go to Iraq was a necessary step in the fight against international terrorism. Although he agreed with the assertion that the president “needs to go right after terrorists,” Meek said the administration missed its target with the invasion of Iraq. “Somewhere along the way he needs to get a new map of the Middle East because last I heard, Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan,” Meek said with a grin.
Meek and Cobey also fielded questions about the presidential nominees’ stances on the environment, gun control, health care and education. Several audience members said although the panelists made a good case for the candidates’ positions on the issues, their remarks were largely political rhetoric they had heard before.
“We got to see a fair interpretation of what we’re going to see in the upcoming election,” Mintz said. “Whether that’s the message Americans need to be hearing is certainly suspect.”
The next “One Sweet Vote” event is scheduled for Sept. 30.
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