Student Democrat speaks out about debates

Ben Smilowitz Sophomore Hartford, CT Public Policy & Pre-Law (314) 935-2042 bssmilow@artsci.wustl.edu

Ben Smilowitz, president of the College Democrats at Washington University in St. Louis and an active participant in this year's campaign, is now firmly in Vice President Gore's camp. "There was a lot of energy for Bradley on campus last winter, and now we're firing up the troops on Gore's behalf," said Smilowitz, who supported former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley in the primary.

"We've undertaken a huge campus voter registration drive, and tried to expose students to the candidates. Obviously we are biased, but mostly we just want to get people interested in politics." Not surprisingly, Smilowitz thought that Gore prevailed in the first debate. "Bush tried to find every opportunity to take a low blow to win the debate, but he didn't succeed. However, considering how low expectations for Bush were, maybe he didn't do as badly as people expected."

According to Smilowitz, Bush is running a "misinformation campaign." In the debate, Smilowitz said, "Bush needed to accuse Gore of using 'fuzzy math' to distract audience from the issues, since he doesn't really understand policy." Smilowitz did differ with the Democratic Party line on one key point -- the Commission on Presidential Debate's decision to exclude Nader. "It's ridiculous to say that third-party candidates should need to get 15 percent in the polls in order to appear at the debates," Smilowitz said. "Five percent is much more realistic. I agree with Nader on some issues, and I think having him there would raise the level of debate."