Few attend USG presidential debate

Some say personal attacks made by candidates and low attendance detracted from final debate.

Pathetic.

That was the sentiment of many students who filtered out of the third and final Undergraduate Student Government presidential and vice-presidential debate in Thomas Building last night.

"I was surprised. It seemed it to me very few students that were there were impartial . . . (The candidates) talked about 'joe average student' a lot last night but he wasn't in the audience," said Greg Bednarski, Council of Commonwealth Student Governments President.

Also noticeably absent were some of the candidates themselves. Only one ticket, Caroline Casagrande and Brian Olivo, was represented in full by the debate's end. "Prior engagement" was a phrase used frequently last night.

Mario Ciabarra, Andrea Prinzi and Roshani Herath all left at some point during the debate.

In addition to the low candidate and audience attendance, the crossfire questions -- when candidates asked questions of each other relating to their respective platforms -- at times became somewhat personal.

Ciabarra said Casagrande's platform was unoriginal and resembled a platform of 1995 USG presidential candidate, Josh Bokee. Casagrande responded by saying she was enjoying her senior prom when Bokee's platform was first issued.

Herath expressed concern that Ciabarra's campaign failed to attend Sunday's multicultural forum yet was proposing many new student forums in their platform.

"There were points where the candidates got downright unprofessional," Bendnarski said. The questions should be for the good of the students and should not be of a personal nature, he added.

However, the candidates present did address some issues facing students.

Caroline Casagrande and Brian Olivo

Casagrande and Olivo stressed the fact that USG will not get any respect from students or administrators without proving itself. They suggested tangible results, such as moving USG office hours to the HUB basement and strengthening the USG senate liaison positions with student organizations.

"The administration respects action . . . we bring you action," Casagrande said.

Mario Ciabarra and Allison Szabaga

Recently disqualified from the election, the ticket was allowed to participate in last night's debate because they have appealed the disqualification decision to the USG Supreme Court.

In Szabaga's closing statements, she said their disqualification was an outrage and degrading to USG as an organization.

"To quote a song, we get knocked down . . . but we get up again," Szabaga said.

Roshani Herath and Christine Muchi

Promoting USG's and other student organizations' events and forums was one of their concerns. They said they would do this through better use of online materials such as a demonstration calendar that already exists on their campaign World Wide Web site.

"It doesn't matter where (USG members) are in the HUB if we are not doing our job -- it's pointless," Herath said.

Todd Krout and Karen Skomorucha

Krout spoke of the need to carry on efforts of previous USG administrations to create continuity and success within USG.

"We are building blocks for the future," Krout said

Andrea Prinzi and J.P. Jaworski

"We will explode into office," said Jaworski.

Prinzi and Jaworski discussed the need for student services, such as more hours for Pattee and opening the dining commons later for studying purposes.