In 2012 the University of Denver held a drawing for about 100 seats at the presidential debate the school hosted. Here, then-student leaders Parker Calbert, Nick Bowlby and Sam Estenson draw names outside the school’s student center. (File photo by Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)
It doesn’t hurt to ask — and keep asking. Tuesday the liberal advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado launched the latest volley in the to the Republican presidential debate in the University of Colorado’s Coors Event Center, asking for 1,000 seats for students.
Though the way the Republican National Committee and CNBC are handling the Oct 28 event isn’t remarkably different than the way other campus debates in Colorado have been held, CU students are persistent in wanting seats. The clamor might also hurt the GOP brand with some younger voters, as a bonus. CU students involved maintain weekly and sometimes daily e-mail contact with reporters covering the campaign and a Facebook had 1,000 guests (as of Tuesday afternoon) who plan to show up the debate. Almost 3,800 more have been invited by the student group. USA Today Monday.
Last Friday CU Chancellor Philip DiStefano .
“I have been impressed with our students’ enthusiasm for and interest in this historic moment,” DiStefano wrote. “Those who say that the 18- to 24-year-old demographic doesn’t care about politics or the future of our country are obviously not talking about CU-Boulder students.”
He said the university was initially given 50 tickets for the event, but it had pushed to get the number up to 100. It wasn’t clear how many of those tickets would go to students or how they would be distributed, however. “The majority of CU’s allotment will go to students,” DiStefano said.
When the University of Denver hosted a presidential debate in 2012, the school to students who wanted to attend out of an allotment of 100.
“I was excited to learn that the Republican presidential candidates are coming to my campus,” said Spencer Carnes, a CU student, in a statement. “But when I found out that most of the seats in the Coors Events Center will be empty, and that students had almost no chance of actually seeing the debate in person, I was offended. If politicians want to use my school as a backdrop, we expect them to let us be in the room to hear what they have to say.”
Added Dylan Robinson-Ruet, another CU student: “No one on our campus buys this excuse that they can only handle 1,000 people at the Coors Events Center. If the debate is only for TV, why hold it in a basketball stadium? If they can accommodate 1,000 hand-picked attendees in a stadium that seats 11,000, they can certainly handle 1,000 more for CU students who want to be there. In fact, it’s the least they can do.”
The RNC position hasn’t changed.
“These debates are designed for a television audience and the millions of people who will tune in,” spokesman Fred Brown said Tuesday. “We look forward to the attention an event of this scale will bring the university,”
ProgressNow executive director Amy Runyon-Harms said the ticket flap was “about misusing the reputation of Colorado’s flagship university.”
“We support hosting this important debate on the University of Colorado campus,” she said. “But using CU to boost the credibility of these candidates while excluding CU students from participation in this debate is simply wrong.”
