While most Duke students spent mid-term week hunched over blue books scribbling timed essays or feverishly darkening in bubbles on multiple choice exams, 16 seniors showcased their mid-semester progress to their professor and their peers in an all-out, public political debate Wednesday night.
After a month of research and preparation, the 16 students in Political Science Professor Peter Feaver’s seminar, “Foreign Policy in the Presidential Campaign,” took to the stage in White Lecture Hall to debate the policy platforms of President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Feaver said the students’ mid-term grades would be based on the effectiveness and accuracy of their responses.
In front of an audience consisting mostly of students, two eight-person teams—one arguing for Bush’s policies and one for Kerry’s—answered questions posed by moderators Bruce Jentleson, director of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and Ambassador David Litt, a career foreign service officer and diplomat-in-residence at Duke. Jentleson offered a Democratic point of view, while Litt represented a Republican perspective.
During the opening statements, senior Matthew Yoeli, arguing for the Kerry team, complained about what he deemed the Bush administration’s “reckless, off-focus and flawed” foreign policy. In contrast, Bush team member senior Daniel Kennedy argued that the Bush administration has made the United States safer by defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He added that national safety in the future depends on leaders having an optimistic outlook on the issues—which he claimed Bush possesses.
For almost two hours, the teams debated foreign policy issues ranging from the invasion of Iraq and the Iranian nuclear program to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. homeland security measures. Adhering to Feaver’s requirements for the event, the debaters could not deviate from Bush and Kerry’s foreign policy platforms or offer original ideas.
On the issue of Iraq—which dominated last week’s televised debate between Bush and Kerry—the student teams presented the candidates’ differing views regarding the distribution of funds in post-invasion efforts. While the Bush team noted the importance of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, the Kerry team argued that most monies should be devoted to bolstering domestic security.
“You can’t reconstruct the roads if you can’t leave the house,” senior Michaela Kerrissey said.
Freshman Lauren Jones, a student in another of Feaver’s classes, thought that the debate was insightful but admitted that she was motivated to attend the event by Feaver’s promise to include a bonus question drawn from Wednesday’s debate on her final exam. Although she said she has already decided who she will vote for on Nov. 2, Jones said the debate “shed a new light” on her political opinions, particularly on the issue of international environmentalism.
Before Jones and the rest of the audience trickled into the auditorium, members of both teams nervously perfected the setup of the stage and their own appearances in what Feaver called “organized chaos.” The Kerry team straightened their black suits, and the male team members adjusted their matching blue ties. The men on the Bush side sought Feaver’s help in tying their brightly-colored bow ties, which they bought specially for the event.
Poking fun at a comment Bush made about Poland’s contribution of troops to the war in Iraq during last week’s debate, the Kerry team drank from Poland Spring brand water bottles.
In class during the weeks leading up to last night’s debate, Feaver’s students focused on how foreign policies affect candidates’ campaigns and, conversely, how campaigns influence candidates’ policies. The students also learned to sift through the two current candidates’ rhetoric and find their histories and platforms to make objective arguments.
Members of the Bush team said they prepared extensively for the debate, conducting independent research and holding several meetings a week. Dividing up the issues offered the biggest challenge, they said, but it also fostered a necessary feeling of teamwork.
Like the real candidates, however, the students’ work is far from done, even with their mid-term debate behind them. After Election Day, Feaver said each student will write a transition memo to the newly elected president about how to facilitate the shift from campaigning to governing. The students may also urge the president to reverse a promise made during the campaign by changing his stance on a particular issue.
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