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Students from College Democrats and College Republicans will go toe-to-toe in a debate scheduled for March 22 in the Bangor Room of the University of Maine Memorial Union.
The debate will be broken into three 30-minute sessions; one on foreign policy, one on domestic issues and a third in a town hall format, in which audience members will ask questions of the participants. Each group will have three representatives on the debate panel. Neither side knows exactly what topics will be covered in the debate, but students from both sides said they wouldn’t be surprised if health care, the recent jobs bill passed in the U.S. Senate, national debt and same-sex marriage were on the agenda.
“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first debate like this. It’s at least the first one since I’ve been here,” said Mark Brewer, professor of political science, who received funding for the debate through Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science undergraduate honor society. Funding secured the preparation for the debate, which will include a lunch for attendees.
College Democrats President Danielle Chrissman said her group is studying past and new legislation in preparation for the debate. She said it’s looking to the Democratic Party platform for guidance.
“We stick very close to the party,” said Margaret Payne, vice president of College Democrats, who will be part of their debate team. “We support health care and the jobs bill. There’s not going to be any conflict between the College Democrats and the national platform.”
The Republicans have a different plan for representing their party, according to College Republicans President Zachary Jackman.
“It could end up that College Democrats are just representatives of their party,” Jackman said. “But we’re going to offer what we think our party should say, not necessarily what our party thinks we should say.”
Jackman, who will be part of the Republican’s debate panel, said the reason for the differing approach is the soul searching taking place at all levels in the Republican Party.
“The Republican Party is reorganizing right now at a record pace, and at a record level. We lost huge in 2008, and while more people are jumping on board, it’s coalition building,” Jackman said that coalition building necessarily brings people with different ideas together, but he is hopeful a stronger party will emerge from the process.
“We’re organizing and getting our priorities straight. But that’s why we’re going to start winning again.”
Ben Goodman — president of the Maine Federation of College Democrats, which has chapters at UMaine, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin colleges, the University of Maine at Farmington, College of the Atlantic and Husson University — said the students on the Democrat’s side don’t represent themselves, but represent “the party that stands for what we believe in.” He said the College Republicans won’t follow their party’s stated platform because the Republican Party as a whole is “out of good ideas.”
“They’ve run out of solutions. They’ve run out of any type of will to try and fix the problems that are facing the country,” Goodman said. “When we look at the internal debate in the Republican Party, we see that the party structure is about as weak as their ideas.”
“The Republican Party needs to figure out what they’re about,” he said. “What we see in the debate will be a small part of that.”
While this will be the first formal debate between the College Democrats and Republicans, the panelists are no strangers to one another. Jackman, Goodman and Payne are all friends. The two men work together on a morning radio show on WMEB 91.9 FM, the university’s college radio station.
Jackman said he knows the members of College Democrats well, and their friendship will be good for the debate.
“The fact that we’re all good friends is part of the college atmosphere. I’d have dinner with them any day of the week,” Jackman said. “We’re going to be able to get up there and talk about the issues as friends, just like normal people would, not like politicians normally do.”
Goodman said he thought the amity between the panelists will make them less cautious.
“I know where Zach stands, he knows where I stand. We won’t be afraid to go after each other because we know that at the end of the day, policy is something separate from our friendship,” Goodman said. “It’s going to be no-holds-barred.”
Regardless of whether the partisans follow the letter of their parties’ stated positions, or if the aisle-crossing friendships between individuals suffer as a result of a debate, both sides said the opportunity for students to debate will benefit the student body.
“Obviously, political issues are heated right now,” Jackman said. “It will be interesting to hear from an organized student perspective, instead of from Washington or Augusta.”
“This debate will give students a chance to see what both sides say on the issues they care about and help them make an informed decision,” said Ben Kelleher, a junior political science student who will join Jackman at the Republican’s table.
“These issues being discussed nationally will affect us all,” Payne said. “This debate will give students an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the issues at hand.”
