The Ohio gubernatorial campaign makes its way onto Ohio State’s campus tomorrow evening at the Blackwell Hotel.
Republican Gov. Bob Taft and Democrat Tim Hagan will answer questions from a statewide panel of university students and faculty in a one-hour debate, from 7-8 p.m. The debate is being aired live on WOSU.
Erin Moriarty, a news anchor and OSU alumna, will mediate the event.
Moriarty is a 12-year correspondent of CBS’ “48 Hours” and was previously the consumer correspondent for “CBS This Morning” and “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.” She earned her bachelor’s degree in behavioral sciences in 1973 and her law degree in 1977, both from Ohio State.
“It’s an honor to have her mediate this event,” said Dorie Herman, program coordinator at the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy. “We asked her to come, and she was excited to say ‘yes.’ “
One student and one faculty member from each of the five co-sponsoring institutes will join Moriarty on stage. Each will ask one self-written question of the two candidates. The questions will not be announced prior to the event, Herman said.
The five sponsoring institutes include the John Glenn Institute, the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati and the Voinovich Center for Leadership and Public Affairs and Ohio University.
Christina Panoska, a senior in natural resources, will represent OSU students at the debate. Panoska was a John Glenn Fellow in spring 2002, completing an internship with the Sierra Club as part of the Glenn Institute’s Washington Academic Internship Program.
“The John Glenn Institute is the lead institute in the debate,” said Deborah Merritt, director of the John Glenn Institute and OSU’s faculty panel member. “We thought these groups gave a nice statewide presence.”
The five institutes have collaborated in the past and will work together in November, training newly-elected members of the Ohio General Assembly.
The Blackwell has put much work into preparing for this event, said Doug Koyle, general manager of the Blackwell.
“We’re a new, upscale venue, and we have ballroom space that could accommodate the event,” Koyle said. “We offer a nice setting and services such as valet parking and state-of-the-art technology.”
Tickets to the event were given to the five groups, whose members distributed them through invitation only, Herman said.
“We expect the audience to be about half students,” Herman said. “We’re certainly excited about that.”
Although the questions to be asked at the debate remain a secret, the Oct. 15 gubernatorial debate in Dayton may foreshadow topics discussed tomorrow.
Hagan criticized Taft’s senior citizens prescription drug policy and Ohio’s poor university graduation rate.
Taft continues to tout Ohio’s record spending on primary and secondary education and criticizes Hagan’s plan to use gambling money to reduce the state deficit, according to a recent Cincinnati Enquirer article.
