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The Fresno City College sociology department hosted the 2008 Presidential Campaign Forum Jan. 13. The crowded table of candidates and representatives tackled issues ranging from health care, the war in Iraq, taxation, and the economy.
In an interview prior to the event, Gerry Bill from the sociology department said, “This is an opportunity for people to learn about the candidates who are going to be on the ballot.” Bill also went on to say that the purpose of education is to train students to be citizens.
Without informed citizens, we can not have a democracy.
Media interviews were held from an hour prior to the actual forum. The candidates and representatives took their seats around the oval table. The political tension could have been cut with a knife.
What was originally designed for one on one interviews quickly grew into a roundtable discussion. During the interview, the representatives squared off on divisive issues and echoed the sentiments of their respected party.
Missing from the media interview were the representatives for Clinton, Obama, Kucinich, McCain, and Don Grundmann from the American Independent Party.
The war in Iraq was an unavoidable topic and seemed to be at the center of attention.
George Phillies from the Libertarian Party vowed that as commander in chief, he would end the war in Iraq.
According to Phillies, moving the troops out would not be a problem, the real issue would be moving all the supplies out of Iraq.
He said that moving the supplies out truckload by truckload would take three to six months.
Stuart Weil, representative for Rudy Giuliani gave a rebuttal to Phillies by saying, “The general view that the Republicans and Giuliani especially is to maintain the great nation that we have and we must realize that we are still at war with an enemy that wants to see us destroyed.”
The only thing that would guarantee safety to the people of the United States would be to make sure that the world becomes more like America, Weil said.
Weil’s comment aroused anger in Richard Becker, representative for Gloria E. La Riva of the Peace and Freedom Party.
“That is a clear Imperialist viewpoint of wanting to dominate the world and we shape the world and make it look like the U.S,” Becker said.
He went on to say that the United States needs to get out of Iraq and that the view that was presented by Weil depicted the lies that the Republicans have been telling people in this country. Becker also made it clear that like Iraq and Iran were not a threat to the United States.
“You would think that it was Iran that had 750 bases around the world. You would think that it was Iran that had a military budget of this year of 800 billion dollars,” said Becker.
Weil from the Giuliani camp mentioned President Bush’s plan to end fascism by bringing Democracy around the world.
Becker responded by saying, “The U.S. needs to get out of Iraq now, they never should have gone in, it was an illegal invasion based on lies, based on doing what Giuliani and all the Republicans are doing now which is invoking fear among the population to gain support for what are unjustifi able ends.”
Healthcare was another topic that brought about different responses. Stewart A. Alexander, from the Peace and Freedom Party, is running for Vice President on a joint ticket with Brian Moore.
On the issue of healthcare Alexander said, “We need to develop a universal health care system where it is not privatized but make certain that the government is responsible for taking care of that.”
Steve Wayte, representative for Republican candidate Ron Paul, gave a very different perspective.
According to Wayte, Ron Paul was not about the New Deal because, he believes, the New Deal has bankrupted this country.
Wayte made it clear that the Ron Paul campaign did not support government funding for social programs such as welfare or health care.
His answer to solving poverty in the United States was personal responsibility. Wayte said, “It is not that Ron Paul does not want a safety net, we just want to make the holes a little bigger.”
Phillies’ proposal for reducing health care costs was to eliminate cost transfers.
He said, “If Congress wants to say emergency rooms should provide health care then Congress should pay for it.” Becker said that health care is sold as a commodity and that the maximization of profit is driving the cost of health care through the roof.
Furthermore, Muir Matteson, representative for Steve Kubby of the Libertarian party brought an alternative perspective to the table.
His answer to all topics at hand seemed to be “end the violence.”
According to Matteson, taxation was an example of how the government initiates violence against the American people. He believed that eliminating taxation was the answer to the health care issue.
Another representative arguing for the elimination of taxes was David Schmidt, representative for Republican candidate Mike Huckabee.
Schmidt said that Huckabee was for the Fair Tax, which would eliminate all income tax, corporate tax, social security tax and put all that onto a single consumption tax. With this fair tax system, we would be taxed 23 percent for every dollar that we spend.
Phillies called for an end to the $9 trillion grandchild tax – the national debt. He said, “We spent the money, we sent the bill to kids who have not even been born yet.”
As an array of topics was being thrown on the table and the discussion grew even more intense, Bill informed us that the actual forum was about to begin. In the midst of the discussions of the Iraq war and health care, everyone had forgotten that the real forum had not even begun.
The representatives and the candidates took their seats in a vertical arrangement of tables facing an auditorium of FCC students, faculty, and members of the community.
Moderator Kehinde Solwazi, an African American Studies instructor at FCC opened the floor to debate.
During the debate, much of the same issues discussed during the interviews were debated. One of the key moments of the forum was when Becker from the Gloria E. La Riva campaign accused Republican candidate Ron Paul of being a racist.
At this comment a woman from the audience stood up and shouted, “Ron Paul is the only patriot!” Dezi Woods-Jones, representative for Barack Obama seemed to know how to rouse the crowd with her great speaking skills.
On the other hand, Brian Forrest who was representing John McCain seemed to bore the crowd by answering every question strictly from note cards.
All of the representatives and the candidates took their turns introducing themselves and their platforms.
It seemed that the majority of the audience members were independent party supporters.
There were a lot of cheers and praises shouted out for Republican candidate Ron Paul. It was interesting that most of the major candidates like McCain, Hillary, and Giuliani did not get much of a reaction from the audience.
Toward the last hour of the forum, audience members were allowed to ask questions.
The representatives that seemed to be well versed on their candidates were Wayte for Ron Paul, Will Tranquilli for Dennis
Kucinich, Woods-Jones for Obama, and Becker for Gloria E. La Riva. Phillies, Grundmann, and Alexander represented themselves well.
Audience frustration seemed to grow towards Clinton representative Jennifer Reimer who seemed to be thrown off by most questions.
Dennis Kucinich supporter Kelly Borkert was frustrated by Reimer’s inability to answer some fundamental questions.
When Kelly asked Reimer about Clinton’s connection to Wal-Mart, Reimer’s response was that she would have to get more information and get back to him. It seemed to Reimer’s response to many other questions was the same.
As the forum came to an end, everyone seemed to appreciate the opportunity that Fresno City College and the sociology department had given the students and members of the community.
This forum also gave the third party candidates, who are often overlooked, an opportunity to voice their opinions and show the voters what they have to offer.
One member of the audience was Teresa Patterson, Executive Director of Public and Legislative Relations for the State Center Community College Distict.
She said that she was attending the forum not as a representative for the district but as an undecided voter. Patterson also said that the forum was, “fantastic.”
