Political clubs host mock presidential debate
After a year of preparation, the auditorium was host to the first ever Student-Represented Mock Presidential Debate. Each candidate that will be on the ballot come Nov. 8 was represented by a member of the student body.
Junior, Macie Lavender spoke on behalf of Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, senior, Jake Alvarez represented Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson and Republican nominee Donald Trump was represented by senior, Mitch Buntyn.
The debate was moderated by senior, Clayton Hurd and monitored by government teacher, Graciela Van Eerde. The event was organized by The Dedicated Alliance of Democratic Students, the Alliance of Plant Republicans and the future board of the Alliance of Minority Party Students.
“It [the debate] went great. I’ve been working on the for over a year, I’ve seen nothing but support from everybody involved,” Alvarez said. “I’m just really glad it came out and I hope that this does help change some people’s mind on the election as a whole, and understand that they’re not alone in understanding the issues that are going on…I hope that this does continue the conversation past Nov.”
Jake Alvarez, senior, stands on the stage to represent Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson. Alvarez has been organizing this debate for the past year.
The debate received similar perception from Alvarez’s republican debate opponent.
“It went really well, a lot fun, friendly- not too hostile, it was good,” Buntyn said.
Mitch Buntyn, senior, defends Republican nominee, Trump’s stances on his behalf. This is Trump’s first time running for any kind of political office.
Democrat, Lavender, has a different perspective compared to her fellow debate participates on how she felt the political occasion went.
“Regrettably, I don’t think I was able to give my best performance in this debate due to me being extremely sick. Moreover, I was quite frankly disappointed with how the layout of the debate was arranged in accordance with the administrations rules,” Lavender said. “It was not much of a debate, and rather a question and answer session where detailed club platforms were forcibly reduced into half-quality portrayals of candidate; we weren’t even allowed rebuttals unless a remark referenced a specific candidate, which we were severely discouraged from doing. Overall, I was excited by the prospect of doing such a debate, but unfortunately disheartened by the reality.”
Macie Lavender, junior, stands on behalf of Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Lavender is also co-president of the Dedicated Alliance of Democratic Students.
Moderator, Hurd took a liking to the overall purpose of the debate.
“I think it went very well for the first time we’ve ever done anything like this at Plant,” Hurd said. “We got a little close at sometimes to what the candidates have been saying.”
The mock debate held the purpose of not only sharing student opinion, but also informing the student body on the stances of the 2016 candidates.
“I thought that the debate really showed that students are more interested in politics and aware of its issues than parents and teachers portray us to be,” junior, Annie Keel said, an audience member of the debate.
The election-based event covered the main issues of any presidential debate, including economy, law and order and foreign policy. Monitor, Van Eerde, was overall proud of the event’s function.
“I think it went great. Clayton and John worked really hard on this behind the scenes,” Van Eerde said. “I think Clayton was a great moderator…Mitch, Macie and Jake did an amazing job. They were the perfect mix of saying the candidate’s view point, the party’s view point and adding their own.”