Students with varying political opinions gathered in De Neve Lecture Auditorium on Thursday night to watch the last Democratic debate before Super Tuesday.
The event, an effort of multiple student groups including Bruin Democrats and the Undergraduate Students Association Council, was a part of Election INVASION week.
“Our goal is to educate students (and) to make sure they make educated choices based on the candidates that represent their interests,” said Jesse Melgar, USAC external vice president and one of the sponsors of the event.
The debate, held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, was the first thus far that had only the two front-running candidates participating, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
Early in the debate, the candidates were asked specifically how they differ on policy issues. Both Clinton and Obama focused on the differences in their health-care plans.
Clinton said she would arrive at universal health care by mandating individuals to purchase. Obama said universal health care would best be attained by making individual plans more affordable.
“You can mandate it, but there still (will be) people who can’t afford it,” Obama said.
Clinton, in response, said her plan will also be affordable because it will provide subsidies and health-care tax credits and will cap premiums.
The two candidates also debated over immigration issues.
Both agreed they would implement comprehensive immigration reform, but differed on the issue of whether or not they would give undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses ““ a plan Obama supports but Clinton does not ““ and in particular, whether or not undocumented immigrants are a factor in the lack of jobs available to Americans.
Obama, unlike Clinton, said that the reason for the number of unemployed Americans is a lack of more general economic reform.
“To suggest the problem we are seeing in unemployment is attributed to immigrants is a kind of scapegoating that I do not believe in,” Obama said.
But, despite emphasizing their policy differences, both agreed a Democratic president would be more favorable than a Republican one.
“What I think is exciting is the way we are looking at the Democratic field; we are going to have change,” Clinton said.
Natalie Gaber, a first-year undeclared student, said that the two candidates are similar on many policy issues but she favors Obama for his other characteristics.
“He speaks from his heart rather than from a script,” Gaber said.
Other students who support Obama said their enthusiasm for him increased after watching the debate.
“I think I’ve gotten stronger as a supporter. He demonstrated that he has the ideas to be president,” Melgar said.
About equal in attendance at the event were students who supported Clinton.
Kyle Kleckner, president of Bruin Democrats, said he has personally become a supporter of Clinton as a result of the presidential debates.
“She’s fighting to change America,” Kleckner said.
But many students said either candidate would be more favorable than others running in the election.
“As a Democrat, I am very proud of the Democratic ticket at this point,” Melger said. “Both candidates performed well.”