College Democrats and College Republicans tossed verbal jabs and hooks during a debate in the Holmes Student Center Regency Room Tuesday night.

Members of the Black Student Union, NAACP, forensics team and political science groups helped the College Republicans and College Democrats organize the debate.

The Republicans, brought five panelists while the Democrats fielded three debaters. Both sides were allowed five.

Dan Kempton, chair and associate professor of political science, moderated the debate. He said the purpose was to determine the stances of the parties and not to determine a winner or loser.

Ten questions were asked concerning the issues of the war on terrorism, the Patriot Act, education, funding of the AIDS campaign and abortion. The first few questions were about the war on terror.

The United States did not build a strong alliance with other countries, the College Democrats said.

Republican Mike Celis, a sophomore political science major said there was a strong alliance for the war on terror.

“I have here in my hands U.N. Resolution 1441, in which everyone agreed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” Celis said.

Both sides fired up when discussing education funding.

The No Child Left Behind Act is a good idea, said Democrat Donna Dalton, a junior political science major, but there was never an intention to make schools comply.

“I think we did really well,” Dalton said. “We made good points, and I was pleased with how we did. The audience reacted well.”

Kempton had to ask the audience to quiet down several times during the debate. There were often murmurs of disagreement or laughter.

“I thought the debate would be more geared toward hearing topics we haven’t heard before,” said Keynice Dixon, a junior political science major. “I had a lot of questions I would have liked to ask. This was the same stuff I had heard on the national debate.”

There is never enough time to discuss all the issues, said Republican panelist Patrick Greene, a sophomore political science major.

Continuing coverage: Election 2004

-Thursday:

-Professors on the issues

-Editorial endorsement: state representative

-Friday:

-Students on the issues

-Monday:

-Breaking down where Bush and Kerry stand on the issues

-Editorial endorsement: U.S. president

-Tuesday:

-Election Day need-to-knows