A drag-out brawl

By William Shoemaker

It was a tense debate, at times with a silence so deep you could hear the candidates sweat, at others with an enthusiasm so strong the debate hall rang with the voices of the speakers. Gruesome sneers from the Republican candidate were answered with benign nods and smiles from the Democrat. You could almost see the suppressed anger smoldering under the politicians’ brows as each struggled to civilly respond to the other’s audaciousness. But no tension was thicker than in the brief moment of silence after moderator Bob Schief—I mean, Steve Fesmire, delivered his questions.

The Green Mountain College mock-presidential debate on October 18 may not have been all that intense, but the debaters at least seemed well informed and willing to defend their party’s ideas. Representing four of the six major political parties in America, the debate had Laird Christensen representing the Green Party, Paul Hancock representing the Reform Party, Tom Williams for the Democrats, and Ron Steffens for the Republicans. The participants each had one minute and thirty seconds to respond to the questions, most of which they had written and submitted to Steve before the debate.

“That’s an excellent question,” said Laird Christensen in response to his own question. “The Green Party does believe something is wrong with America: our democracy is controlled by two major political parties, but that’s not the way democracy is supposed to function. One of the ways the Greens want to change this is by having instant-runoff voting, which would allow voters to rate their top five candidates and ensure that over time, third-party candidates can have representation.” Laird also laid out that the Greens seek abolition of the Electoral College to be replaced by a new form of proportional representation. Among the Green’s main political goals are universal health care, a sustainable world economy, and a complete withdrawal from Iraq within a year.

Paul Hancock, representative of Ralph Nader’s Reform Party, agreed with Laird on most environmental and political issues, but with an emphasis on labor. “Our country’s economic policy has moved toward corporate America and away from the average American,” Paul said. “Involvement in labor unions has gone down significantly; the American worker is losing power. The Reform Party advocates an increase in the national minimum wage to $10 an hour as opposed to the current $5.15 an hour, which is below the living wage.” Paul also emphasized the importance of voting one’s ideals, rather than voting with the majority. “To argue that John Kerry is any less indebted and tied to the big corporations is untrue,” he said. “We shouldn’t cast our votes out of fear, we should cast them out of conviction.”

Tom Williams, however, in representing John Kerry and the Democrats, disagreed sharply with Reform’s sentiment. “Affirmative action is at stake in this election,” he said. “A woman’s right to choose is at stake. And I strongly believe that if you have any measure of concern for the environment, Kerry is the right choice. Voting for anyone else is throwing your vote away.”

Christensen, although he represented the Greens in the debate, agreed personally with Tom. “I love the Green Party because it represents the dream of the society I want,” Laird said. “I hope my grandchildren see that society, though I don’t expect to see it myself. I do believe that Kerry is indebted to corporate powers, but in a different way than Bush is, and I think we have to minimize our harmful effects while working to create change on a local and state level.”

All the while, Ron Steffens played the role of the Republicans near-perfectly. The only problem was, without a teleprompter or a Dick Cheney earpiece, he didn’t seem to have much to say.