As a consolation to public outcry over CNN's choice of venue for Thursday's Democratic debate, the Texas Democratic Party and the University decided to distribute their allotted tickets through public lotteries. The response to their lotteries was obscene: More than 43,000 people entered the Texas Democratic Party's lottery for 100 tickets, and more than 18,000 members of the UT community entered the University raffle for 400 tickets. You don't need to know much arithmetic to realize the miniscule odds of winning a ticket, and the staggering number of folks who were let down. Our country is starving for political participation of the young generation, and we see the enthusiasm this debate has pumped into Austin as a victory in itself.
But that's not enough. We can't help the fact that CNN chose an unreasonably small venue to accommodate such an active University and city, but we can do as much as possible to help ensure UT students' voices are heard on Thursday. Over the past several days, The Daily Texan and UT's Student Government spoke with numerous students and compiled well over 100 questions to present to CNN, with the hope that the candidates will address at least some of them at the debate.
Since we continue to hear our presidential hopefuls speak on the same big issues, we have offered CNN a diverse compilation of video-taped questions, many of which are unique, personal or far from the campaign speech scripts we've all memorized by now. On Tuesday, we heard from faculty, student leaders and campus activists (among many others); they addressed topics ranging from AIDS in Africa to high school sex education and every aspect of our world's environmental predicament. One student compared the position of commander-in-chief, a world superpower, to a superhero, and asked the candidates which superhero best represents them. Another student shared her story of attending high school with many undocumented friends who weren't able to go to college and asked the candidates how they could change that.
CNN had the power to let more students attend the debate, and now they have our students' questions and concerns in their hands. We and our student leaders in SG have gone beyond compromise. Obama and Clinton will be here on our campus, and we want our next president (fingers crossed) to hear what we have to say. But for that to happen, CNN has to hear us out first.
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