Candidates Back Out, Third-Party Debate Cancelled

Sunday’s planned debate among several third-party candidates for president was cancelled due to scheduling conflicts and other organizational problems.

The Columbia Political Union planned the debate, which was supposed to include the Green Party’s Cynthia McKinney, the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin, and independent candidate Ralph Nader. CPU announced the cancellation in a press release and an e-mail to its members on Friday evening. The plans failed, they said, due to a variety of problems involving both the candidates’ schedules and the details of their hosting plans.

“I don’t think any one party really knows all of what went wrong,” CPU Communications Director Lauren Salz, BC ’11, said. She also explained that the event’s timing on Sunday required CPU to confirm all details by the end of business hours on Friday, which left them with little time to resolve problems that arose late in the week.
In their press release, CPU lauded the student body’s interest in the event.

“We believe it is a great testament to Columbia students’ interest in political discourse, their sense of civic responsibility, and their receptiveness to new ideas that all 275 tickets reserved for students were sold out within a day of being made available for an event on a Sunday evening before midterm exams,” the group wrote.

mary.kohlmann@columbiaspectator.com