So tonight was the Service Nation discussion at my school which featured appearances by senators John McCain and Barrack Obama (and celebrity guest, Toby Maguire?). Their talks were nationally televised so I won't go into a revision of what all was said. All I can say is that going into the event, I had pretty low expectations for McCain and equally high expectations for Obama. Frankly, in this instance (and this one alone) I have to give it to McCain. He exceeded my expectations and delivered thoughtful and interesting responses to the questions posed. Obama, on the other hand, seemed less interested and, dare I say, cocky, with his responses. It has been well publicized that he has little pride in Columbia, his undergraduate Alma Mater, and he appeared to carry that with him in his talk, despite the overwhelming support he received from the institution. McCain, who's daughter just graduated from CU last year, spoke positively of our school and paid special attention to not offend his host.
One thing that had me exceptionally angry, which has nothing to do with with of the candidates speeches, was the poor planning that went into this even on Columbia's part. The lottery system that decided which students would be present in the room of the event made sense. Obviously such a popular event needs a fair and equal opportunity way to decide who can go. However, after stressing that the audience would be made up of entirely CU students, only about 150 actually got tickets into the event (the auditorium holds well into the 1000s). The rest of us had to settle for the "jumbo-tron" in our quad. Here's where things got tricky- for the first half of the event (before the candidates began) the screen either had no sound, was in black and white, or was just wonky looking. After resetting the system, administrators did their best to keep the picture and sound rolling and it became less distracting as the words of our possible future president took over our attention. However, the initial complications made the event all the more disappointing.
On a lighter note- as I was walking to get a seat at 5pm, I was passing brigades of secret service and police officers. One of the secret service men said to his comrades that it was time to "Begin Operation [unintelligible]." In response, a police officer leaned in to one of his comrades, near me, and said "how about some Operation Dunkin' Donuts!" True story.
One thing that had me exceptionally angry, which has nothing to do with with of the candidates speeches, was the poor planning that went into this even on Columbia's part. The lottery system that decided which students would be present in the room of the event made sense. Obviously such a popular event needs a fair and equal opportunity way to decide who can go. However, after stressing that the audience would be made up of entirely CU students, only about 150 actually got tickets into the event (the auditorium holds well into the 1000s). The rest of us had to settle for the "jumbo-tron" in our quad. Here's where things got tricky- for the first half of the event (before the candidates began) the screen either had no sound, was in black and white, or was just wonky looking. After resetting the system, administrators did their best to keep the picture and sound rolling and it became less distracting as the words of our possible future president took over our attention. However, the initial complications made the event all the more disappointing.
On a lighter note- as I was walking to get a seat at 5pm, I was passing brigades of secret service and police officers. One of the secret service men said to his comrades that it was time to "Begin Operation [unintelligible]." In response, a police officer leaned in to one of his comrades, near me, and said "how about some Operation Dunkin' Donuts!" True story.
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