University students and faculty were part of the 66.5 million people who tuned in to watch Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump participate in the second presidential debate Sunday. The debate, moderated by both ABC Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and co-anchor Martha Raddatz and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, was held at Washington University in St. Louis.
The town hall style debate featured questions from undecided St. Louis residents who were selected by Gallup through a screening process. This town hall style gave the candidates an opportunity to move around the stage and connect with the audience, creating a more dynamic and personal atmosphere.
“Theoretically, the town hall debate form could be better because it forces the candidates perhaps out of their natural comfort zones or it forces them to respond to real Americans asking questions,” Geoffrey Skelley, media relations coordinator for the University’s Center for Politics, said.
However, in the context of Sunday’s debate, the town hall style may have made it harder for moderators to keep order, Skelley said.
“It may have been easier for moderators to handle this situation if it had been sort of your standard stand-behind-a-podium debate,” Skelley said. “The town hall format is theoretically good, but I don’t think it worked very well last night.”
Audience members asked questions which touched upon several issues, including the Syrian refugee crisis, taxes, health care costs and even energy. However, Skelley said he thought the questions were broad and allowed the debate to become less formatted.
“[The questions] were just so generic,” Skelley said. “Maybe that’s fair that the questions were like that because … a lot of people don’t know a lot of specifics about certain issues … but it just seemed to me some of the questions were … so generic that I wasn’t really sure what they accomplished,” Skelley said.
Skelley said he wanted the candidates to speak more on their stances regarding policy than they did.
“Ideally, politics is about ideas and [I] can’t say we saw a lot of that last night and … that’s unfortunate … for the American people,” Skelley said. “People don’t decide their vote necessarily based on ideas. What they do is they turn the light on one person to begin with, or one side to begin with, and they sort of rationalize after the fact why they support that person or thing but still ideally you would like to see … policy specific debate over issues.”
Fourth-year College student Sarah Mondejar said she did not think the debate was very useful in helping her to make an informed voting decision.
“I don’t think [the debate] helped any of us decide,” Mondejar said. “It’s been very difficult to choose because we are all in the position of we think it’s the lesser of two evils, and this didn’t help at all because [Trump] talked around the questions and [Clinton] just went at him for yelling at her, so it wasn’t really … proactive.”
She also spoke about how candidates appealed to their followers in being able to maintain their party’s platform.
“I think Trump is a nightmare for conservatives,” Mondejar said. “I don’t identify as a Democrat so I can’t really speak to their platform, but it doesn’t seem like [Hillary’s] saying anything out of the blue that I wouldn’t expect.”
Fourth-year College student Veronica Sullivan said she did not find the candidates relatable and was frustrated with Trump as the Republican nominee.
“I do identify as a Republican and to have [Trump] as your candidate … is frustrating especially for our first election to vote in, it’s just disappointing,” Sullivan said. “Overall, it’s just very difficult to agree with either one of [the candidates].”
Second-year College student Sarah Singer was an undecided voter when she started watching the debate and said she was surprised to see what the state of this election is like.
“I think that the commentator said it pretty well at the end there stating that there was a lot of venom between the two candidates and that it was unprecedented in presidential history. I’m just a bit in shock that this is our election cycle,” Singer said. “The debate helped me recognize the fact that Donald is so unrelenting and that’s he’s extremely determined.”
For students like first-year College Amare Osei, the debate did nothing to change their minds.
“I am definitely still unchanged,” Osei said. “I am voting for Hillary and I think tonight just proved that she, … as Donald Trump said, … doesn’t quit and she is willing to fight for what I believe in.”
Read More
Honor Committee plans Dorm Talks and finals week initiatives
By Lexie Stadler | 7 hours agoIn an effort to enhance student outreach and introduce incoming students to the Honor System, the Committee will reintroduce Dorm Talks in the Fall 2024 semester.
BREAKING: Two fraternities suspended, one terminated after hazing allegations
By Ford McCracken | YesterdayThe University’s chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha is the founding chapter of the fraternity, which was founded in West Range room 47 in 1868.
From the archives: April 22 – April 28
By Maisy Callahan and Grace Franklin | YesterdayThose opposed to the Mall feared closing Main St. would create inconvenience and traffic, which would in turn decrease the income made by merchants.
