Live Blogging the Debate

Jeff Harms, Joel Anderson, & The Panther Pundit are sitting next to me contributing their thoughts all night. 


7:02pm : Everyone is here. Everyone is excited. Trevor was just caught singing Billy Joel. Although, it's not as good as KaLeigh's rendition of "Build Me up Buttercup".

Joel's comments on Jordan's outfit, "If you took a picture of him and made it black and white he would look like an 1890s Iron Tycoon. He has the pocket watch and everything! I just imagined a political cartoonist turning him into a giant bag of money! It's a good look on him"

7:07pm: John Anderson begins with the format of the debate. First it will begin with opening statements, then moderator questions, then questions form the audience, then closing statements.

7:08pm: All the candidates open up with their credentials.

The Election Commissioner points out that, "It's strange that they aren't talking about their platforms. Just their credentials."

7:12pm 


What are three things that you think should be available to every student at UNI? How you will assure that students have access to it?


Trevor/ Beth:
1. A great education.
2. Access to Student Leaders.
3. A great experience at UNI.

Jordan/KaLeigh:
1. Students know what resources are available for them.
2. Increase NISG awareness.
3. Create a community for students.

Kyle/Brendan:
1. Quality Education
2. Access to Resources
3. Enjoyable Experience.

A lot of these answers are the same. The candidates don't seem to separate themselves from each other yet. Jeff points out that Brendan was the only candidate not to speak on that question.

What are your stances on the changes that President Allen announced may be made in the coming years?

Jordan/KaLeigh:
Cuts are necessary. Most important to UNI is academics. Not sure what we can directly do to influence the cuts.

Kyle/Brendan:
Budget cuts suck. We'll have to measure our resources and try to fit them into our three objectives from above. We want to be the voice of the students.

Trevor/Beth:
We want to fight for students, especially in academics. We would fight for all the other programs too, but recognize that athletics CAN be cut.

They all seem to put academics first. But disagree on the point of athletics.
       
Who have you met in the University administration about your platform?


Kyle/Brendan:
We meet with students first. Joel says, "sounds like a very Cezar-Lobdell response".

Trevor/Beth:
We have put the most thought into this. We have the most concise and realistic platform.

Jordan/KaLeigh:
We spoke with the people involved with Veteran affairs, Disability students, and the director of dining.

None of the candidates seemed to drop many names with people they worked with.

From Spencer Walrath- How will candidates work with Senate?


Trevor/Beth:
Communication. Communication. Communication. Communication.
Also add humor to instense situations. Perhaps like this video?

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/15/is-this-the-funniest-youtube-video-ever/

Jordan/KaLeigh:
Senate is their own voice. We want to collaborate to accomplish the same goals.

Kyle/Brendan:
We have the same goal as the Senate. We want to communicate with them and create a professional and personal relationships with them.

I think that Kyle and KaLeigh are huge winners in that one. They seemed to be speaking to the students, not just the moderators.

How do the tickets plan on lobbying more effectively and keep tuition down?


Jordan/KaLeigh:
The reason the Iowa Legislature doesn't care about us is because we don't vote in the elections. We want to increase the voters. We want to have freshman register to vote at orientation. (Joel points out that this is the only fresh idea that we've heard on lobbying).

Kyle/Brendan:
We want students to write letters, visit the capital, and voice their opinions to the government. We need students to vote if we are going to be properly representatives.

Trevor/Beth (I just realized that they are the only candidates that are still standing when they speak)
We want to hire the best Director of Governmental Relations possible, so that they can do the best job in the Capital.

What do you think about Greek  Life on campus?


Kyle/Brendan:
We can't make our Greek Life comparable to ISU and UI. But we're UNI, we're unique and we have a unique Greek life.
"Greek are small but mighty"-Kyle Burns
We want to collaborate more with NISG and Greeks on campus.

Trevor/Beth:
Greek like is.. Great!
We should always encourage student organizations to grow and be awesome.

Jordan/KaLeigh:
We have Greeks included on our platform. We don't like that they are separated from the campus. We want to work with IFC and Panhel to pick our Greek cabinet positions on campus.

Now we are taking questions from the audience


7:54pm "How will you spend the rest of your campaign funds"- Laura Castro

Kyle/Brendan- We funded this all ourselves. But any extra will be donated.
Trevor/Beth- We are donating all extra shirts to kids in Nicaragua.
Jordan/KaLeigh- If we win, we are going to use it to pay for travel to Des Moines. If we lose, we'll donate our money

7:56pm "I spoke with the Veterans Affairs student organization and they said that there is no communication between NISG and the Organization. How will you change this?"

Jordan/KaLeigh: We will use the lower cabinet to do that and pass bills like I sponsored last week with Jared Parker. Which pledged to dedicate more resources to Veterans.

7:58pm "What are you tangibly going to do to help diversity on campus?"

Trevor/Beth: We will create a diversity student advisory board.

8:00pm "What haven't Trevor and Beth filled the open Campbell Hall seat in NISG Senate"

Trevor/Beth: Trevor is busy with other things and wants to put his full effort in it. Beth is secretary of Campbell Hall Senate.

8:04pm "What are your thoughts on a LGBTQ center on campus?"

Jordan/KaLeigh: Awesome. Letsdoit.

Kyle/Brednan: We are going to meet with the LGBTQ students first (which is happening week) before we come up with solutions. We need to know the problems first.

Trevor/Beth:  LGBTQ are students too. So they will get the same treatment.

8:17pm "Sometimes it's difficult to hang posters in the DOR because of their policies"- KaLeigh
No kidding. The DOR posting policy is impossible. Joel says, "It's killing student organizations like CAB and Panther Productions". I agree. DOR, if you're listening. Help students out.

8:18pm On how the debate is going so far, Jeff says, "So far the (audience) questions are things that could have been answered by reading through the platforms. The candidates are really going much further past their platforms in this debate. I don't see a common theme from any of the tickets"

8:20pm Throughout this entire debate, Trevor and Beth have been the only candidates to stand up while speaking. This gave them a huge advantage. It drew my eyes to them throughout and forced me to watch them while they spoke.

8:22pm Closing statements are going to begin

Kyle/Brendan
Thanks for coming out to this. We really appreciate it. We firmly stand for the three things at the beginning.
1. Quality Education
2. Access to Resources
3. Enjoyable Time at UNI
We are students first, not athletes. We put our academics first and will continue to do that if we win.

Trevor/Beth
We like all the other tickets, it's been fun. We thank everyone. We want to lead this campus.

Jordan/KaLeigh
Thanks to everyone (including me!). KaLeigh thinks that they have the best platform and wants everyone to get informed before they vote.