About 120 students gathered to watch the vice-presidential debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden at Sidelines Pub last Thursday night.
In an effort to encourage students to attend this event, the first 50 people through the door received at $10 meal voucher for the Pub.
Students said they enjoyed the informal viewing of the only debate this election between the nominees for vice president.
Freshman Jessa Allen said, “It was interesting to see so many people so knowledgeable about the election and to hear other people’s takes on the debate.”
Junior Kelley Allen said, “It’s really cool to see college students being politically active and attending an event like this.”
The debate was followed by a student-faculty discussion of the issues brought up during the debate.
Palin and Biden debated a number of hot topics, including foreign policy, economic issues and government spending.
Students interacted by cheering and booing when the candidates answered the question posed by debate moderator Gwen Ifill, PBS anchor and host of PBS’s Washington Week.
The debate was held at Washington University in St. Louis.
The crowd at DU appeared to be fairly evenly divided along party lines.
In an informal poll, 44 percent said they would be voting for Democrat Barack Obama while 24 percent said they were voting for Republican John McCain, while 26 percent were undecided.
Another 6 percent reported plans to vote for minority party candidates.
The debate viewers paid particular attention to the performance by Palin and some agreed with a CNN poll following the debate where 84 percent of those polled said Palin surpassed their expectations.
“Being from Alaska I wanted to see how Palin would present herself.
I was happy to see that she did well and better than everyone expected,” freshman Megan Ryan said.
Partners in Learning and the College Republicans were two of the sponsors of the event in the Pub.
Karen Bensen, director of Partners in Learning, said, “I like seeing the conversation and buzz between friends [and] people are relating.”
Another viewing party is tonight as Obama and McCain debate each other at 7 p.m. Denver time.
Again the first 50 students through the door will receive a $10 meal voucher.
The debate will have a town-hall style format.
