Some students motivated for Mock Election

By Kelsey Wolfe

The Republican platform adoption was off to a slow start after the floor was open for discussion on the various platform issues. John Landes, co-campaign manager for Republican Party hopeful Rick Perry, was standing on the side motivating student delegates to speak their minds about the various planks. As Landes paced around the perimeter of the seated delegates, his spirit was obviously visible.

After the GOP platform was presented, silence fell across the University Union Grand Ballroom when delegates were asked to debate amendments to the various positions. After a bit of encouragement, delegates began to speak up on the issues.

Hot topics included the death penalty in general and for convicted murders in particular, the removal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the legalization of marijuana.

“Students will finally know where the GOP stands and they will be more informed for the general election,” Landes said.

At the Democratic platform adoption, the crowd was pumped up by music. Democratic State Representative Mike Boland (D-Moline), pictured above, further energized the crowd as the keynote speaker, but there was silence again when the floor was opened for debate. It took a while for delegates to begin their discussion.

Many were motivated to speak, and there was quite a bit of good discussion. However, there was also quite a bit of unneeded, uninformed discussion. There was a lot of confusion among the delegates about Democratic positions on each of the various platform stances. Because of this, the Democratic discussion took much longer than needed.