Three DU students stood in for presidential candidates President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney and debate moderator Jim Lehrer during a dress rehearsal for the presidential debate last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Pictures featuring the students shaking hands and standing at the podiums were featured on the cover of the New York Times and in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

Carl Johnson, executive director of student activities and faculty adviser for Undergraduate Student Government, approached each student individually with the opportunity.

Dia Mohamed,  USG Natural Science, Math and Engineering senator and junior biology student from Aurora, said he didn’t know what to expect from acting as the president, but felt that the dress rehearsal went smoothly.

“When I stood behind the podium, I tried to imitate what the President would do. ‘Maybe the President would stand like this’ or ‘maybe he kicks his feet together like this’ or ‘maybe I should look around,’” said Mohamed.

Zach Gonzales, USG Arts and Humanities senator and a senior from Pueblo, majoring in economics and math stood in for Romney.  According to Gonzales, the students were surprised by how much they were expected to do while technicians tested equipment.

“Day one, our preparation consisted of getting out of bed and putting a suit on, frankly, but it turns out we were expected to do much more. Day two, we all did our homework on party platforms and staged a mock debate – it went off without a hitch,” said Gonzalez.

Sam Garry, a USG Daniels College of Business senator and sophomore finance major from Fort Collins stood in for moderator Jim Lehrer and stumped Mohamed and Gonzales  on a couple mock questions.

About halfway through Wednesday morning’s rehearsal, Lehrer himself took over for Garry, which is  when the students realized they had received tickets for the Debate Hall due to their involvement with USG.
“We were probably on stage half an hour or so with Jim, then we got off stage and Sam said, ‘I think you should check your email,’” said Gonzales.

Garry felt that watching the debate made the experience much more personal.

“It was really cool, thinking ‘I was in that place,’” said Garry.

Mohamed jokingly described watching the debate as a “been-there done-that” experience.

“While Jim was telling us, ‘The President’s going to come out of here and the Governor out of here’ we were like, ‘Oh, we know the drill,’” said Mohamed.

For Gonzales, the dress rehearsal made him more sympathetic to the candidates.

“I remember standing in that spot during the rehearsal and thinking, ‘Wow. Mitt Romney’s going to be standing in this spot. What’s he going to be thinking?’ said Gonzales. “The experience really humanized the candidates for me.”