Stephanie Summar

News Reporter

Associated Student Government hosted a higher education debate last Friday night in the College Center’s ballroom to reach out to student voters and prove to the community that Mesa State is an asset to Grand Junction. The event was well-attended by faculty, students, and members of the community. ASG President Nick Lopez moderated questions submitted by students for the candidates.

ASG invited candidates running for several positions across the state and district. The candidates were Scott Tipton, who is running for the United States House of Representatives, Scott Gessler, who is running for Colorado Secretary of State, and Steve King and Claudette Konola, opponents in the race for Colorado’s state senate.

The main “debate” of the evening provided the event with a strong start when King, the Republican incumbent who graduated from Mesa State, squared off against Konola, a Democrat with no previous experience in public office who has worked extensively in the financial sector.

“Leadership is serious business and these are serious times,” King said in his opening remarks. “There has never been a larger contrast between the Democratic party and the Republican party than there is today.”

Although there were stark differences in the fiscal policies of the candidates and their plans for economic stimulation, both King and Konola agreed on several platforms. Both Senate hopefuls emphasized the importance of assuaging the financial burden on college students and their families when further budget cuts for higher education inevitably happen.

“We have to think of some creative ways to backfill what will be cut because we are looking at budget cuts. There is no way around it. So what we have to do is think of some creative ways to solve the crisis in education, and that’s going to be finding ways to bring private money into this public pool,” said Konola, who opposes the complete privatization of higher education.

Kessler, the only candidate for Secretary of State who agreed to attend, came because he finds that debates offer an impression that voters can’t get from sound bites on television. The Secretary of State oversees elections and campaigns in Colorado, areas in which Gessler, a Republican, has a great deal of experience as an election lawyer.

“I think students deserve the same level of respect as any other group. You guys vote, you should participate, you do participate, and so I’m happy to come here and show that respect. I think debates are really good because they show an exchange of ideas, and we didn’t quite have that tonight in the ‘me versus me’ debate, but I think it’s important when you put the effort into something like this that candidates respect that,” Gessler said.

Tipton, the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, is opposing incumbent John Salazar, who did not attend ASG’s debate. Tipton also emphasized that this election boils down to a message about getting through the economic recession, which he said should be particularly important for college students who are concerned about affording school and getting jobs after graduation.

“For my family, education happens to be very important. I’m the first person in my family on either side to be able to graduate and be able to go to college, so education is a priority. We need to be prioritizing those government dollars instead of running off and trying to give everything to everyone. We have a lot of resources in government, but we’ve been directing them in a lot of different directions. Let’s look for ways to reduce our inefficiencies and redundancies, to be able to make sure that we’re addressing the most fundamental need we have in the nation if we’re going to have economic growth– that’s an educated population,” Tipton said following his session onstage.

Several campaign members for each of the candidates approached ASG throughout the debate to mention how organized and put-together the event was. Lopez was pleased with the final product, which he believed will encourage students to get involved in issues which directly impact their futures.

“It’s been an ongoing conversation for us for the last two-and-a-half years, trying to get students involved in these political issues. These issues will have a tremendous impact on Mesa State College and the students we serve. Their tuition costs, their student fees, their job after they graduate, will all be directly affected by the representatives we elect in this election and by the decisions we make on the ballot,” Lopez said.

ssummar@mesastate.edu