By Josh Fitzgerald
Night 2 at the Mock Presidential Election was heated, to say the least. The Democratic Party meeting started out with a very passionate speech by State Representative Mike Boland of Moline, who said in his speech, “The Iraq War was started based on lies.”
After his remarks, “State Representatives” made up of Western Illinois University students wrote down their opinions on the issues listed on the proposed Democratic Party platform. After a short break, it was time to discuss and ultimately vote on the issues accepted as platform planks.
Ignoring the number of students who had zero interest in the convention itself (but more about the latest gossip), a lot of the issues discussed turned into heated debates. A large number of students approached the microphones to voice their opinions. After every point that a student made, 9 times out of 10 there would be rousing applause supporting his or her assertions from the rest of the “representatives.”
The lengthiest and most controversial debate was the discussion on whether or not the Democratic Party should be strongly opposed to, or strongly in favor of, raising the debt ceiling. Ultimately, the platform discussion ended up strongly supporting raising the debt ceiling when necessary.
It is unfortunate that there is not more time in the proceedings. Only 14 out of the 30 topics on the proposed platform were discussed due to time constraints. (Earlier, the Republican Party finished discussing 28 of their 30 issues).
On day two, it seems as if the students who attended the Democratic Party Convention were not going to go down without a fight, and made sure their voices were heard.
“This is what democracy looks like.”
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