Monday, October 27, 2008

Debate Tonight

No, not that kind of debate. Obama's Wednesday night primetime affair is the only [scheduled] high-profile campaign event this week.

However, tonight FHQ is moderating a debate between the College Republicans and Young Democrats on campus here at UGA. [It isn't on the level of the Colbert Report, et al. but it is monumental enough that I taken to using the third person when describing my participation in it.] Anyway, I don't want to totally outsource the resposibility*, but I'd like to open it up here and see what kind of questions our readers and frequent contributors would like to see asked in such a context. If you're like me you submitted at least one hundred questions on MySpace in the hopes that one would be chosen for the town hall debate in Nashville earlier this month. But also like me, you were likely disappointed when one wasn't chosen. Well, now you have the opportunity to submit questions to a panel of partisans from each side of the aisle who aren't even "officially" representing either campaign. [Oh, I'm supposed to be convincing you to actually post questions.]

Here are the rules for submission:
1) There are two broad topic areas, foreign and domestic.
2) We are steering clear of social issues in an effort to tamp down the number of fist fights outside the hall this evening.
Other than that, everything else is fair game. But I will add one additional rule since our contributors tend to lean toward the left (though our readers may come from a broader range on the ideological spectrum):
3) No gotcha questions.
Though there won't be a live blog of the festivities, I'll have a wrap up post up in the morning (so you can see if your question was chosen.).

*I should note that there are student-submitted questions as well.


Recent Posts:
The Electoral College Map (10/27/08)

The Electoral College Map (10/26/08)

Early Voting and McCain's Home-Stretch Strategy

9 comments:

Jack said...

Is the debate about the issues themselves [for example, "Should we have universal health care, and why?"] or about the candidates [for example, "Which candidate has a better health care plan, and why?"] I ask because my school had an "election forum" and the details kept changing, probably because I was the only one that volunteered to speak.

Anonymous said...

That isn't really nailed down too firmly, Jack. I suspect that my questions will start out like the former and be answered with the latter.

But it was made very clear in my meeting with representatives from both groups that these are not official surrogates for the McCain or Obama campaigns. There may, then, be some effort to curb those "my candidate" sorts of answers.

Jack said...

Alright. And I must warn you that steering clear of social issues does not guarantee there won't be any fist fights outside of the hall. At the forum at my school, the moderator, a liberal professor, got into such an argument with a conservative student that it derailed the whole event. Then again, that was caused by the professor; I'm sure you will not act so unprofessionally.

Robert said...

Two questions:

1. What is the difference between a conservative and a libertarian?

2. What is the difference between a liberal and a socialist?

Daniel N said...

As the baby boomers retire, the federal budget will come under greatly increased strain. Specifically, federal expenses for social security, and Medicare (health care which is greatly subsidized by the federal government for people over 65) will soar. As between cuts in these programs and tax increases, what mix do you prefer, and where would cut from these programs/raise taxes?

Robert said...

How did it go last night?

Anonymous said...

Well, it put me behind, that's for sure. Ha!

I'll have a post up about the debate last night in a little while. The new map is up though, while you wait.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for moderated the debate Josh, it went extremely well.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely. It was fun. We should do another one just so we can focus a little more on the foreign policy material.