Collegiate Times

As the president of the Young Democrats at Virginia Tech and the person responsible for organizing the debate that was supposed to take place on Nov. 2 between Senator John Edwards and Dave Nutter, I would like to respond to the recent piece by the editorial board about that event.

Although it is true that Nutter may have felt uncomfortable participating in the debate because the sponsoring organizations had more of a left-leaning bias, I would like to clarify that I invited numerous right-leaning organizations to cosponsor this event, including the College Republicans, Friends of Coal, the Pistol and Rifle Club and Right to Life, all of which declined to participate.

If Nutter objected to the group of organizations that chose to co-sponsor the debate, that is not the fault of those organizations, but of the many organizations that would have supported him that chose not to participate. Furthermore, several organizations that did choose to participate in the debate, such as the Political Science Club and the Debate Club, are not partisan or biased toward either candidate.

While I completely understand the predicament that Nutter was in due to the fact that many of the participating organizations represented interests that he is opposed to, it was the most sincere wish of all of the organizations involved that both of the candidates could have participated in this debate with fair and equal support from the student organizations involved. I hope in the future we can work more closely with some of the right-leaning organizations on campus to better inform interested students and citizens in this area.

Amanda Anger

president, Young Democrats

A version of this article appeared in the Nov 8 issue of the Collegiate Times.