function openSlideShow717(){window.open(slideshowpath + 717,’selectUser’,config=’scrollbars=No,resizable=Yes’);}SLIDESHOW: Boston Rocks the Vote
Eight of the nine Democratic presidential candidates exchanged barbs and blasted the Bush administration’s policies at Faneuil Hall Tuesday night in a debate aimed at engaging young voters, as they addressed issues ranging from gay rights to the candidates’ past drug experience.
‘We’ll all keep our hands down on this one,’ former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said when confronted with the marijuana question, prompting laughter from the audience of about 200, most of them college students or recent graduates.
Dean, however, along with Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.), admitted to having smoked marijuana, while Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), Gen. Wesley Clark, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) denied it. Former U.S. Sen. and Amb. to New Zealand Carol Moseley Braun refused to answer the question.
The candidates fielded questions submitted through email and text messages, as well as from the audience, during the 90-minute debate, sponsored by youth voting organization Rock the Vote and aired live on CNN. Rep. Richard Gephardt (Mo.) did not attend the debate because he was campaigning in Iowa, although he appeared Monday on ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews’ at Harvard University.
The most heated exchange of the night came when 25-year-old Sekou Diyday questioned Dean on his statement last week that he ‘wanted to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks.’
Dean defended his statement, saying he is an advocate for working-class Southerners who have traditionally sided with the Republican Party, but Sharpton attacked what he said was Dean’s unwillingness to apologize for an ‘insensitive’ remark.
‘When Bill Clinton was found to be a member of a white-only country club, he apologized,’ Sharpton said. ‘You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say ‘I’m wrong’ and go on.’
Edwards also criticized Dean for his Confederate flag comment, saying it perpetuated untrue Southern stereotypes.
‘One of the problems that we have with young people today is people talk down to you,’ Edwards said. ‘You know, you get all pigeon-holed. They’ve stereotyped you.
‘Exactly the same thing happens with people from the South … I’m here to tell you it is wrong,’ he added. ‘It is condescending.’
Edwards pledged to improve the economy for young Americans by bringing industry to poor areas and reforming the tax system, while Kucinich said he would eliminate Bush’s tax cuts and use the money to fund universal college education for students at public colleges and universities.
The candidates also set forth their positions on gay rights.
Clark said he would review the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. Kerry affirmed his support for civil unions and hate crime legislation, and Kucinich said he would push for legalizing gay marriage. Dean pointed to the first civil union law, passed in Vermont while he was governor and said it is important for Americans to understand the gay and lesbian community.
On the question of foreign policy, Lieberman defended his initial support for invading Iraq, but he criticized the way Bush handled operations both during the war and after the end of formal combat.
‘I didn’t support the war in Iraq so that America could control Iraq,’ Lieberman said. ‘I supported it to get rid of a homicidal maniac named Saddam Hussein and to let the Iraqis control Iraq.’
Dean said Congress had erred by allowing Bush to send troops to Iraq in the first place, but said if he were in charge of withdrawing from Iraq, he would place troops from Arab-speaking nations to help rebuild Iraq ‘so this is an international reconstruction and not an American occupation.’
Clark said he would not reinstate the draft.
The candidates also took questions of a less serious nature, revealing, for instance, which of the other candidates with whom they would most like to party.
Sharpton said he would like to party with Kerry’s wife, while Kerry said he would party with Sharpton so he could ‘keep an eye on [his] wife.’
One audience member also asked Kerry if he would have left Sox star Pedro Martinez in during the last inning of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
Kerry would have taken Martinez out, he said, and added, ‘because I’ve been a long-suffering Red Sox fan, I know adversity.’
‘And I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Every single one of us ought to celebrate the Marlins beating the Yankees. And the reason it’s extra special is that’s the first legitimate victory out of Florida since 2000.’
College of Communication senior Aminah Sloan, who watched the debate from a nearby bar, said she was impressed by the candidates’ performances at the debate, particularly Sharpton’s and Kerry’s.
Kerry, she said, ‘had the kind of charisma and statesman-like presence that we haven’t seen in the last four years.’