Politico

A random sample of 3,000 Ohio State undergraduates will receive e-mails today inviting them to participate in a wide-ranging poll focusing primarily on the Nov. 4 election. Ohio State’s Columbus, Newark and Lima campuses will take part in the project that includes four major battleground states.

The online surveys will be self-administered and will take about 10 minutes to complete. Reminder e-mails will be sent on Oct. 9, 13 and 16 to students who were in the sample but have not responded. The survey will close Oct. 19.

The CBS Polling Unit collaborated with UWIRE, a wire service owned by CBS that provides news primarily to colleges and universities, to conduct a similar poll in Pennsylvania before the April primary election. UWIRE Editorial Director Andrew Young called the poll a big success. He said UWIRE and the network decided to partner with the Chronicle of Higher Education to expand the study for the November election.

A total of 47 colleges and universities of all sizes will participate in Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes), Ohio (20), North Carolina (15) and Colorado (9). Fifteen schools will represent Ohio.

Young said they selected a contested state from each region of the country.

"We chose Ohio because it is rare a president wins the election and loses Ohio," Young said. He also cited the number of big colleges and universities in the state.

The survey will contain between 50-70 questions, though the actual number depends on individual response. Questions will cover candidate preference, where students get their election information, feelings on critical issues and the use of social networking sites.

Cornell University’s Survey and Research Institute will host the questionnaire.

In order to get 400 survey responses per school, pollsters are asking schools to provide a sample of 3,000 students. The numbers are based on the response rate of six to 15 percent from the Pennsylvania survey.

At some smaller schools, a 3,000-student sample will mean almost the entire student population will be involved.

Dr. Erik Nisbet, an assistant professor of communications at Ohio State and OSU liaison for the study, said college-age voters are typically underrepresented in national polling. He said most pollsters do not call dormitories or cell phones, leaving a majority of college students off survey lists. College students also are less likely to be at home to answer the phone or have time to participate in polling.

This year’s polls have shown a correlation between voter age and candidate preference much more than in previous elections.
Voters from age 18 to 29 have a 19-point preference toward Sen. Barack Obama with 58 percent supporting Obama and 39 percent for Sen. John McCain, according to a Pew Research Center poll. In contrast, people age 65 and older tended to support McCain.

The 2008 Ohio primary saw 25 percent of youth voters participate, up from 10 percent in 2000, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

"There was a solid increase in primary voting and I think we will see another increase in the actual election," Young said.

In 2004, the Census Bureau reported that voters between the ages of 18-24 had the lowest turnout of any age group, with only 47 percent. The 2004 election, as a whole, had the highest voter turnout since 1968, with 60.7 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot.

Donnie Clark reports for The Ohio State University’s The Lantern. The Lantern is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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CountMore is a new Web site providing college students around the nation with a means of discovering where their votes will have the most impact come election time. While comparing home states with school states, the site will tell students where their vote will "count more."

In 1979, a Supreme Court ruling stated that college students had the right to vote either at home or in the town where they went to school. Around Virginia Tech, there have been several representatives from the Democratic and Republican parties encouraging students to vote here, rather than requesting an absentee ballot from their home town or state.

The actual CountMore Web site was developed by Front Seat, a civic software company based in Washington. Matt Lerner, Front Seat’s chief technology officer who was previously employed by Microsoft for five years, believes that every college student should vote while also understanding in which state their vote is more important.

"CountMore wants to get students out there, talking about voting and doing it where it matters most," Lerner said.

CountMore.org was a brainchild of Lerner’s and was developed and up and running in less than a week. The project was launched on Sept. 19, following national attention that Lerner and his partner, Jesse Kocher, had received with other projects, such as Walk Score which rates the ‘walkability’ of a specific establishment. Specifically, CountMore hopes to encourage students to register to vote as well as engage in dialogue with other friends who may not be registered.

"The national voter turnout in 2004 was at 55 percent," Lerner said. "I think we’re going to see students turn out in greater numbers because there’s so much excitement around this election, and for many of them it is their first voting experience."

Kocher agrees with Lerner.

"It’s more important for people to feel like their vote matters, especially when it’s their first time," Kocher said. "College students have just gotten to be the age that they are allowed to vote, and that’s a great time for them to step up and make a decision."

Virginia is especially important because of its status as a battleground state. No candidate has overwhelming support. In battleground states, votes count more because of the Electoral College; the 2000 election was decided by roughly 500 votes in Florida. That said, CountMore proposes that votes there may have not counted as much as they might have in another state.

Aleisha Jacobson also works with the developers of the CountMore Web site. She believes that everyone, not even just students, need to get out to vote and research where their votes might have more weight.

"I think that with the way the Electoral College works, unfortunately some places do have votes that count more," Jacobson said. "It’s important to always be responsible when you register to vote, and make your own decision."

Recently in Virginia, there was a controversy over registering to vote in a different state than the one that you used to fill out scholarships and other applications for financial aid. The state issued two incorrect releases warning students of the consequences of registering to vote at school. These releases also stated that students could potentially no longer be claimed as dependents of their parent. CountMore hopes to alleviate the stress that this may cause for students who are registering in different states.

The deadline to register to vote in Virginia is Oct. 6. The deadline to order an absentee ballot is Oct. 28.

Justin Graves reports for Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s Collegiate Times. The Collegiate Times is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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With students applying for federal financial aid assistance in record numbers this year, the financial fate of college students may be impacted by who the next president of the United States will be.

After the vice presidential debate on Thursday, representatives from both parties confirmed that increased access to higher education will be a top priority for their presidential candidates.

In addition to making federal aid programs easier to comprehend for parents, as well as supporting Pell Grants—the federal government’s leading college aid program—Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama plans to create the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which would pay for the first $4,000 of a college student’s tuition in exchange for 100 hours of community service.

The plan would also pay for roughly two-thirds of a typical public university’s tuition and make community college free for most students.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination this election cycle, said that education would be a prominent focus in the Illinois senator’s presidency.

“This would be a major priority,” Richardson told Student Life after the vice presidential debate on Thursday. “The cornerstone of the Obama-Biden proposal is scholarship for every student—$4,000 in exchange for one year for community service.”

Republican nominee John McCain’s higher education plan is focused on simplification. If elected, McCain would simplify higher education tax benefits and the federal financial aid process by consolidating programs.

The Arizona senator also plans to eliminate earmarks to promote research funding and wants to reform the private lending industry to make private loans simpler and more effective.

“[McCain] has always had an interest in education issues,” Frank Donatelli, deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee, said. “He believes very strongly in K-12 choice and education. He favors a greater variety of assistance to college students to enable parents to send their children through college.”

For sophomore Sydney Sherman, education is a critical issue that she believes both candidates should emphasize in their campaigns.

“In order to have a better economy and society, in a few years we need to have more educated people who get can get better jobs and run the system,” Sherman said.

In order to meet the record demand for federal financial aid, the Pell Grants program may need up to $6 billion in additional taxpayer money next year, according to a recent New York Times article. The Department of Education said that the next president would struggle with financing the shortfall of Pell Grants.

But Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who spoke to students in Edison Theatre on Thursday, said that repairing Pell Grants would not be enough to fix the college tuition crisis.

“We’re not going to be able to patch this up by simply fixing Pell Grants,” the former Vermont governor said. “The Republicans cut Pell Grants, and when we took over [Congress] in ’06, we put the Pell Grants back to where they were. But in the long term, as long as you’re in an industry where the rate of tuition [increase] goes up at twice the rate of inflation…you can’t keep up, and neither can Pell Grants.”

Richardson acknowledged the current shortfall of higher education funds and said that Obama would work to remedy the situation.

“In other words, [Obama-Biden] will fund the Pell Grant program, the work-study program and the [American Opportunity Tax Credit] scholarship,” Richardson said.

Despite the current troubled state of the economy, Richardson said that Obama would still be able to fund his higher education plans by reordering priorities.

Although college campus tend to have liberal leanings, surrogates for both parties said that college-aged students are significant constituents, and if elected, their candidates would ensure that the college voice is heard.

Linda Douglass, a senior strategist for the Obama campaign, said that Obama is running a grassroots campaign that will involve politics in people’s every day lives, including in the lives of young people.

“The whole theory of this campaign is that the power should come from the grassroots up,” Douglass said. “You involve people whether it is in energy conservation, whether it is in improving school, whether it is in thinking through ways to have more green energy [or] whether it is new ways to plan transportation. There are a lot of ways in which you can involve people in their everyday lives.”

Although McCain has not been as successful in grabbing the youth vote as Obama has, Donatelli said that the McCain education proposals would prove to be beneficial for the young generation.

“Sen. McCain has always had a special affection for young people. He draws energy from the energy of young people,” Donatelli said. “Young people have a friend with a McCain and Palin administration.”

John McCain’s Higher Education Policy
• Simplify Higher Education Tax Benefits

McCain believes that the existing tax benefits are too complicated, and many eligible families don’t claim them. By simplifying the existing benefits, he hopes to ensure that a greater number of families have a lower tax burden when they are helping to send their children to college.

• Simplify Federal Financial Aid

McCain believes too many programs and a complicated application process deter many eligible students from seeking student aid. He hopes that consolidating programs will help simplify the administration of these programs, and help more students have a better understanding of their eligibility for aid.

• Fix the Student Lending Programs

John McCain has proposed an expansion of the lender-of-last resort capability of the federal student loan system and will demand the highest standard of integrity for participating private lenders. Effective reforms and leveraging the private sector will ensure the necessary funding of higher education aspirations, and create a simpler and more effective program in the process.

Barack Obama’s Higher Education Policy
• Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit

Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university.

• Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid

Obama and Biden will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application.

Perry Stein reports for Washington University’s Student Life. The Student Life is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections. With additional reporting by Puneet Kollipara.

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NEW YORK (AP) - It’s starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice president.

Fey again returned to "Saturday Night Live" to play Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as the sketch comedy show continued to pull out all the stops in its election year season.

Queen Latifah dropped by to portray Thursday’s debate moderator, PBS’s Gwen Ifill, and cast member Jason Sudeikis stepped into the role of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The "SNL" take on the week’s political events has become a dependable part of the news cycle this fall, offering near-immediate parodies of the presidential candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, and their running mates.

The show - particularly the opening sketches - have resonated with higher ratings for the NBC program and increased traffic on its Web site where early-to-bed viewers catch the talked-about sketches in
the days after.

Saturday night’s opening sketch of the VP debate appeared likely to garner similar buzz thanks to Fey’s popular Palin impression.

Winking and giving answers not always directly related to Queen Latifah’s questions, Fey’s Palin said that if she was elected, her decisions would be guided by considering "what would a maverick do?"

At the end of the segment, she asked with flute in hand, "Are we not doing the talent portion?"

Palin was runnerup in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest.

Sudeikis, with hair slicked back and a tight-fitting suit, portrayed Biden as conflicted in his feelings for McCain, whom he called "a raging maniac and a dear, dear friend."

Saturday’s "SNL" concluded the opening run of four straight shows - including three with guest appearances from Fey, a former cast member and head writer for "SNL" whose day job is starring in, producing and writing for NBC’s "30 Rock." The network has said her appearances on "SNL" are being decided on a week-to-week basis.

The show has shown its willingness this fall to cast from beyond its current lineup. Last week, former cast member Chris Parnell returned to play Jim Lehrer, the moderator of the first presidential debate.

"SNL" - which was hosted Saturday by Anne Hathaway with the Killers performing - will get its first weekend off this week. But it will still capitalize on election campaign fodder with the first of three prime-time "Weekend Update" specials beginning Thursday.

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CHICAGO (AP) - Colombian superstar Shakira says Democrat Barack Obama is the best candidate for president, citing his leadership skills.

In a statement Saturday, the Grammy-winning pop artist said Obama can restore peace and the world’s confidence in the United States. Obama faces Republican presidential nominee John McCain in
the Nov. 4 election.

Obama said he was honored to receive the singer’s endorsement. The Illinois senator praised Shakira as a role model for young Latinas in the U.S. and beyond.

Shakira encouraged U.S. Latinos to vote in November.

The United States "has a profound importance to me, and I think to the whole world as well," she said.

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Stern students worried about their career prospects amid the financial crisis will have no problem finding jobs, Stern dean Thomas Cooley said at an event last night.

“Contrary to popular belief, there will always be jobs available in the finance industry,” he said. “However, it is a good idea for students to branch out from finance and shift their interests to different industries, such as marketing and entrepreneurship.”

Amidst one of the worst financial crises in American history, Cooley and Stern professors Edward Altman, Roy Smith and Lawrence White hosted a panel last night, at which they offered guidance to Stern students during this economic fallout.

“Many people are skeptical of the bailout because authorizing the treasury to spend $700 billion seems too vague, and it is a departure from the way economic problems were dealt with in the past,” Cooley said.

Altman, a professor of finance, believes that the crisis is due to many factors, and the blame should not be placed exclusively on current bank failures.

“Even if we do get over this crisis there are still more issues to be dealt with,” Altman said. “When stock dropped, it was a wake-up call that this crisis in not just a crisis of our financial institutions.”

Smith offered a more optimistic outlook on the country’s economic future, as well as on the job market.

“It has been my experience that the economy goes through a series of booms and busts, but this time it is just bigger,” Smith, a professor of entrepreneurship and finance, said. “Whoever wins the election in November will need to rethink the economy, just as Franklin Roosevelt did during the Great Depression.”

The abundance of finance majors at Stern are left wondering what this current economic downturn means for the job market upon their graduation.

“I think there is going to be a big shift from finance majors if the economy does not get better,” Stern freshman Alyssa de Abl said. “However, it is really good to be in school now because hopefully by the time we graduate the situation will be remedied, and there will be more jobs available.” 

Victoria DeCarmine reports for New York University’s Washington Square News. Washington Square News is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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For the first time in Ohio, voters can cast their votes early. From now until Nov. 3, voters registered in Franklin County can go to Veterans Memorial Park Amphitheater and cast their ballots for the presidential election.

In an election year where the youth vote is considered a critical factor with the potential to tip the scales, new voter registration and early voting are being emphasized to maximize participation.

"We think it’s going to play a pivotal role in this election, and students are going to play a pivotal role," said Olivia Alair, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign.

Until the voting registration deadline ends Monday, free bussing will be available to transport students to Veterans Memorial to register or cast their ballots.

The bus will run today through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Stops are located at the Recreation and Physical Activity Center, at the corner of W. 17th Avenue and High Street and the corner of W. 12th Avenue and High Street every half-hour.

Alair said early voting should eliminate the need to wait in long lines on Election Day and allow more citizens to vote who otherwise would not.

Early voting might also increase the youth vote from 2004 presidential election numbers. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a record 47 percent of the 18-24 age demographic cast ballots in 2004.

Although the effort to encourage people to cast their ballots before Election Day is driven by Students for Obama, students of any political affiliation can register at campus tables or take the bus to the Veterans Memorial to vote. Alair said thousands of new voters have already registered.

Students can also vote absentee in Ohio without needing to state a reason.

Most residence halls on campus have information about having absentee ballot delivered to the dorm, and they are available at the county board of elections office.

Alecia Mouhanna reports for The Ohio State University’s The Lantern. The Lantern is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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WASHINGTON — It didn’t take long this week for the controversy over veteran journalist Gwen Ifill’s first book, due out Inauguration Day, to hit the micro-blog Twitter. Within hours, the host of Thursday’s vice-presidential debate, and her book about Barack Obama and other African American politicians, became one of the most talked about topics on the site’s new election page.

Some took to the site to vent: "VP Moderator Gwen Ifill is writing a positive book on Barack Obama. Why then would she be selected as the moderator?"

Others, to fight back: "Republicans are massive whiners. ‘Nancy Pelosi’s a big meanie!’ ‘Gwen Ifill’s writing a book about Obama!" (Even though she isn’t). [sic] whaa wha."

At first glance, Twitter may seem like just another destination for people looking to ramble. The site is booming, though. In the past 12 months, traffic has shot up 2100 percent, according to Matt Tatham, director of media relations at the Internet monitoring firm Hitwise.com.

With its foray into presidential politics, which debuted in time for last Friday’s presidential debate, the Web site is providing a "kind of live window into the pulse of Twitter’s users as they respond to what’s going on in the political arena," said Micah Sifry, an editor at Techpresident.com, a blog about technology and the 2008 campaign.

The response to the election site was huge, Sifry said. During the 90-minute debate, registrations to the site jumped 135 percent compared to the same time the previous week.

Users got especially busy when the conversation turned to Iraq, according to data released by Twitter. Traffic also spiked when the subject of taxes came up, and following John McCain’s assertion that "the average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean."

So exactly what is Twitter anyway, and how does it work?

The best way to think about Twitter is as a way to text message over the Internet. When users sign into the election page, a field on the screen asks them the simple question, "What do you think?" Below, a box provides them 140 characters of text — about the length of a text message — to respond. The page constantly updates as responses are posted, much like the tickers used by cable news stations.

When a user posts an answer it also goes to his or her profile page, which anyone and everyone is free to follow. Barack Obama, for instance, has nearly 90,000 followers on Twitter. John McCain, just over 1,700.

Users can also receive updates from those they are following on the Twitter site itself, on their phones as a text message, as email, or on other social networking sites, such as Facebook.

The election page is an offshoot of Twitter.com, where instead of being asked "What do you think?" users are asked "What are you doing?"

Who is on Twitter anyway, and what does it offer voters?

Twitter won’t say how many users it has, but estimates place the number around 3 million. As for the profile of the average user, "The people I have seen use Twitter the most are young, tech savvy, and politically inclined," said Julie Barko Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University.

According to Germany, "The potential is quite high for a site like Twitter to be used this election to get people out to vote, to persuade people, or to share a different perspective about the candidates or the election."

She said the average voter could have skipped the first debate, and just turned to Twitter for a play-by-play of what happened.

Sifry sees the site as a tool for organization. "The place where Twitter has the greatest political potential," he said, "is in helping people coordinate quick responses."

He cited this summer’s "don’t go" movement, when Twitter was flooded by posts from users seeking to force a vote on new oil drilling during the House’s recess in August.

"The ‘don’t go’ movement was a moment for a lot of online conservatives to discover each other," Sifry said. "It showed how several thousand people could coordinate quickly and without any centralized command headquarters."

Twitterers also organized en masse late in September, Sifry said, when John McCain announced he would suspend his campaign to return to Washington to work on the bailout plan. In just minutes, Sifry said, "thousands of people in effect started thumbing their nose at McCain" by joking about how they were going to suspend their own work.

What about politicians? How are they using the site?

Quite simply, "not very well," according to Germany. The problem, she said, is they want to use the site to link to mass produced, tightly-controlled messages, such as new ads or press releases, "and that’s just not very effective."

A recent post by the Obama campaign, for example, read "Just launched a ‘Next Generation Veterans for Obama’ video on YouTube ." The post was followed by a link to the ad. As for volume, the Obama campaign has posted more than 200 times. The McCain campaign has posted on eight occasions.

Germany said that despite their struggles to adapt to Twitter, the candidates must be on such social networking sites "because if they don’t do it they seem like they’re out of touch."

Have a question for Reality Bytes? Let us know by e-mailing us.

Jason M. Breslow reports for Northwestern University’s Medill News Service. Medill News Service is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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Despite countless media jabs predicting the worst, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s preparation seemed to pay off as she and Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) went head-to-head in the most anticipated debate of this election cycle.

Falling into their predicted roles in the debate, Biden established himself as the veteran by welcoming Palin with a “Nice to meet you,” while Palin painted herself as someone free of Washington influence and in touch with the feelings of mainstream America by using an anecdote involving soccer moms to stress the dire state of the country’s economy.

The economy dominated the first segment of the debate as each candidate aligned with his or her party’s traditional economical views. Biden advocated for middle class tax cuts, while Palin defended tax cuts for corporations.

Turning to foreign policy, Biden focused on Pakistan’s threat as a nuclear power.

Palin, although agreeing that Pakistan posed a global threat with a nuclear weapon, emphasized the recent military successes in Iraq.

Additionally Palin, like Senator John McCain in last week’s presidential debate, chose to focus on Senator Barack Obama’s willingness to sit down with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling his action “outright dangerous” and “beyond bad judgment.”

Biden provided a rebuttal by attacking McCain and saying that he wouldn’t sit down with the government of Spain, a NATO ally.

Not surprisingly, the war in Iraq proved to be a heated debate topic.

 Biden criticized McCain’s war strategy, saying, “For John McCain, there is no end in sight to end this war.”

Equally perturbed by the Democrat ticket’s strategy, Palin said, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender.”

Claiming that their positions on global warming represented the most fundamental difference between his ticket and McCain and Palin’s, Biden said that global warming is undoubtedly man-made. Palin said she did not want to argue the cause and chose instead to propose solutions through domestic energy production.

“Energy independence is the key to our nation’s future, to our economic future and our national security,” Palin said.

Throughout the debate, both candidates depicted themselves as in touch with the country’s middle class, alluding to their families and their small-town backgrounds.

Palin continuously referened her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, even mentioning her brother’s third grade class when prompted about her education plan.

Biden talked about his hometown of Scranton and the economic struggles his family faced as a child.

In arguably the most anticipated question of the debate, moderator Gwen Ifill quoted the cliché “The next vice-president is a heartbeat away from being president,” and asked each candidate what he or she would do if they unexpectedly became president.

Biden said that he would carry out Obama’s plans and most importantly work to reinstate the middle class. He elaborated on that statement, saying that he would not follow the lead of Vice President Dick Cheney.

“Vice President Cheney has probably been the most dangerous vice president in this nation’s history,” Biden said.

Palin delivered a similar answer but joked that she and McCain have their differences.

“What do you expect of a team of mavericks? Of course, we are not going to agree on everything,” she said. “He has never asked me to check my opinions at the door.”

Throughout the debate, however, the message from both parties was that these next four years would have to place the American people first.

“And at the end of the day,” Palin said, “as long as we’re all working for the greater good, it’s going to be okay.”

Perry Stein and Jeremy Rogoff report for Washington University’s Student Life. The Student Life is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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Though Washington University administrators have experience in planning security measures for past presidential debates, securing the campus for tonight’s vice presidential debate was no easy task.

The importance of debate security became more critical than expected with Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, an unexpected pick that stunned the world and excited voters who previously might not have been excited.

And with Palin shielded from most media contact by the McCain campaign, the vice presidential debate will be the first time voters will see how her credentials stack up directly against those of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, six-term Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

“I never thought the VP debate would grab the attention of the world like it is. I think it’s based on the Republican Party’s candidate,” Jill Carnaghi, assistant vice chancellor for students and director of campus life, said. “It doesn’t appear to have let up much. Who ever thought that the VP debate would take the spotlight from the three presidential debates?”

After days of preparation and difficulties with funding, the University is hoping that the campus will be secure for another debate, after hosting presidential debates in 1992, 2000 and 2004. Don Strom, chief of the Washington University Police Department (WUPD), has been at the helm of the department’s security efforts for this debate and the 2000 and 2004 debates.

According to Strom, the security measures center around a unified command structure consisting of representatives from WUPD, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, University City and Clayton police departments and the Missouri Highway Patrol, in addition to fire and emergency services representatives.

Police departments in neighboring municipalities may also provide assistance.

“Part of our planning is to plan for a variety of different contingencies, all of which we hope don’t ever occur, but we take them into consideration and staff appropriately,” Strom told Student Life.

The U.S. Secret Service will also have a large presence. Strom noted that there would be a shared responsibility for security between the Secret Service and local law enforcement agencies.

While the planned security measures will likely cause nuisances for students, faculty and campus visitors, University administrators like Carnaghi say the experience of a debate will make the security checkpoints and parking lot closure aggravations worthwhile.

“I’ve had some folks say, ‘One of the most memorable things was being involved in the 2000 or 2004 presidential debate, that I got to see it, I got to be there, or I got to meet Tim Russert or Tom Brokaw,’” Carnaghi said.

Access to campus restricted, lots and streets closed

Yesterday and today, access to campus has been restricted to students, faculty, staff and invited guests. The Office of Residential Life, as in past debates, implemented a no guest policy for students, which ends tomorrow afternoon.

Chancellor Mark Wrighton sent an e-mail to the University community detailing some of the campus restrictions during debate week. The e-mail advises students and staff to carry their ID cards at all times so they can pass through checkpoints.

“We’re going to have a lot of law enforcement people here who are not as familiar with our campus as our officers are, so if they ask somebody for their ID, they’re going to expect to see it,” Strom said.

Security measures have forced the closures of 10 parking lots and portions of Forsyth and Big Bend boulevards, and beginning at 11 a.m., all vehicle traffic entering campus must enter on Brookings Drive via Skinker Boulevard.

“A debate of this size and this importance requires a lot of various staff and media and guests, and it requires a certain amount of parking availability,” Nicholas Stoff, director of Parking and Transportation Services, said. “Some of those lots are [closed] also for security reasons with their distance to the [Athletic Complex].”

With the parking and traffic constraints, Stoff advises people to carpool or use alternative modes of transportation and to give themselves extra time.

A full list of parking restrictions is available at http://parking.wustl.edu.

Security funding difficulties

Security for the 2004 debate cost about $600,000, according to Strom. The University and other agencies involved have in those cases received $300,000 from the federal government in the form of the very competitive Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grants.

For this year’s debate, the St. Louis Area Regional Response System (STARRS), a body that handles the St. Louis area’s requests for UASI grants, received several hundred thousand dollars of UASI grants, $300,000 of which STARRS agreed to allocate for the vice presidential debate.

But this past week the federal government withheld the money from use because the grant requires the Homeland Security terror alert level to be orange, or at a high risk of terror attacks. The current level is at yellow, one level lower.

“Certainly we’re disappointed, and it’s a competitive process. You’re always competing against other needs that people have,” Strom said. “It’s also frustrating that you get mixed signals from the start about what was going to be approved and what wasn’t, and after being told that it met the criteria and then being told later that it was not coming after all.”

The University and the other regional police agencies involved will now have to absorb the costs of security. But Strom says that even if the University had received the money, it would have given other agencies funding first.

“We already adopted a attitude internally that if the funding became available [WUPD] was not going to accept the funding. We were going to let the partners on the upside have that first,” Strom said. “It certainly wouldn’t have paid all their costs but it may have been something.”

Strom did not comment on how the costs would be spread among the involved law enforcement agencies, but he said that the number of officers each agency contributes would be one factor.

Regular Upper Row searches not anticipated

Although Greek Life officials recently said that the Secret Service would have the authority to search buildings in close proximity to the Athletic Complex regularly, Strom denied that the Secret Service would conduct regular searches, but it will have the authority to conduct searches if deemed necessary.

“I don’t anticipate any kind of searches that would involve dogs or anything like that,” Strom said. “Obviously if we perceive some sort of threat we would respond to that threat and investigate it.”

But fraternity members are not entirely safe from investigations. Yesterday and today, only the residents of Upper Row are being admitted to the area because crowds pose an additional security risk.

“There are certain stresses on our security measures that having too many people in that area could create,” Strom said.

Administration and students not concerned

Despite the laundry list of security measures, past inconveniences surrounding the debates, have been minor, according to Carnaghi.

“If anything, there were minor inconveniences that people were more than willing to contend with to in order to be part of it all,” the assistant vice chancellor said. “I don’t remember receiving any student complaints. If anything, there was kind of an excitement in the air.”

This debate will be no different. According to Carnaghi, the benefits afforded by the hosting of a debate outweigh the accompanying security inconveniences.

“I think all the benefits and opportunities far outweigh any inconvenience,” Carnaghi said. “From my perspective, the reason we take it on is so students can see firsthand the political process, so they can get involved if they want, they can offer to volunteer.”

“Let’s just hope the weather is good,” Carnaghi added. “That will be the biggest inconvenience.”

Overall, students like senior Adam Cohen, a Student Union senator who lives off campus, are taking the inconveniences in stride.

“Getting onto campus is going to be a little more difficult,” Cohen said. “Unfortunately it is kind of a big cost for Wash. U. But I think that the debate is a great thing in terms of publicity for Wash. U., and I think it’s a great thing in terms of getting students engaged in politics.”

Puneet Kollipara reports for Washington University’s Student Life. The Student Life is partnering with Campus Politico for the 2008 elections.

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