Tonight, UNLV held a mock debate between one democrat and one republican on the issues du jour, moderated by TV debate show host of Face to Face, Jon Ralston.
For the Dems, Awais Khaleel, vice president of the National College Democrats, came all the way from University of Wisconsin to debate. For the Republicans, Ciara Turns, president of the UNLV College Republicans, showed up as a last minute replacement.
The crowd was mostly filled with Democrats: only one Republican party representative stumped for Ron Paul during the pre-debate shout outs. Students from the Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Biden and Kucinich campaign hyped their candidates and various pre-Democratic Presidential debate tail gate parties. Clearly, the Dems like to party.
All the action came from on stage however, once Ralston finally arrived.
Khaleel opened with a very energetic, talking point filled speech which Ralston described as "bringing the fire and brimstone." Turns only gave a half-hearted intro. But she would turn on Khaleel later on.
Turns didn't hold back on the ad hominem. She patronized Khaleel by acting like a mother trying to explain to a very distressed 4-year-old that 2+2=50.
"Let me state this as simply as possible so you can understand," was uttered more than once throughout the debate.
As for the issues, there was a lot of back and forth on Iraq. Turns' main point was that the war in Iraq is already over, and that the Democrats are conflating the war in Iraq with the war on terror. Khaleel retorted that if this were the war on terror, then the government should be going after Bin Laden.
When the healthcare issue was brought up, Turns advocated illegally purchasing drugs from Canada because they are cheaper, wholly missing the point that our own government should provide inexpensive prescription drugs. I wonder why they are so cheap? Oh yeah, because Canadians have "socialized medicine."
But the piece de resistance came when the issue of gay marriage was brought up. Turns speculates that anti-sodomy laws prevent gay marriage. Without anti-sodomy laws, then gays can get married. She then pointedly says to Khaleel, "You know what sodomy is right? It's something you are very familiar with."
[Let me digress one moment to point out the flawed logic. Laws are not (or should not) be enacted to prevent fringe consequences. We do not have drunk driving laws to prevent alcoholism, for example. Secondly, at best, it’s speculation that sodomy has anything to do with gay marriage or homosexuality in general. Do lesbians necessarily have anal sex? What about the countless HETERO couples who have anal sex? I think I recall some research on virginity pledgers who had anal sex because it wasn’t “real sex”. Back to your regular programming…]
Little gems like that littered the debate. But she got speechless at the very end when faced with an immigration question.
Ralston: "If you were 4 years old when you were smuggled in here by your parents. You go to school now, you're college age. Should you be booted back to your country?"
Turns: [long pause] [paper shuffling] "Yes. Yes. Sure."
Khaleel didn't do spectacularly well either, but he at least refrained from calling Turns a blonde bimbo while she kept throwing out every Democratic stereotype known to man. Khaleel kept going a bit off tangent (although not as off tangent as Turns, going from poverty to abortion to global warming in a single breath) and spoke very passionately. It was a bit odd considering the other two spoke very calmly.
Both were essentially reduced to either talking points or sound bites. I don't know if I learned anything at all about either party or felt more assured about my own. But at least the university is hosting events like this to keep the channels of communication open. Rather than, say, appointing free speech zones.
For those in the neighborhood, contact your local party or campaign office to find out about any pre-Democratic Presidential debate tail gate parties. I know I totally want in on the festivities.
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