For our humanities class, we had a mock debate between presidential candidates of either the democratic or the republican party, and then voted on who we supported the most. Each candidate was represented by a team of students, each experts on a specific topic. In my case, I was John McCain on Energy and Global Warming. My opponents were Jake LeMatty as Mitt Romney, and Ally Camacho as Mike Huckabee. We debated about what we (we spoke as our candidates) would do about global warming, and how we would help the world during this energy crisis. McCain strongly believed in something called the “cap-and-trade” system, which was an idea my opponents did not so ardently support.
During the debate, I found it a bit difficult to reflect the opinions of the candidate I was assigned, considering that my personal opinions greatly differed from his own. I think that in the end, this helped, because it allowed me to see beyond my own prejudices, and to accept the opinions of others. My own views did not change, but I started to see where the other “side” was coming from.
I thought that our debate was quite enlightening, and I learned a lot about what all the candidates believe on each of the important topics. And being given the chance to vote for the candidate we agreed with most was a good thing, because it allowed us to show what we thought on the candidates and why.
Many of the representatives for the candidates were very well prepared. There were a few that superseded others in the amount of time they spent researching, and defending their candidate’s opinions. Personally, I do not believe I did very well; I could have spent far more time researching exactly what it was that my candidate was going for, and what he had done in the past.
Overall, I think this mini-project was very informative, and really helped me understand more what is happening in today’s presidential campaign.
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