American Forum

By Allie Meyer

The American Forum veered off the agenda Wednesday night as bickering between the panelists and a distracting Tweet wall upstaged the event.

As people left the Forum there was more talk about the squabbling between the panelists than the issues covered.

“I think it’s a reflection of the state our country is in right now as far as politics go, it’s an excellent example of why we can’t get anything passed through Congress because even at a forum that isn’t supposed to be about partisanship they can’t do anything but bicker and try and get their agendas out there,” said Patrice Ingham, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs.

The Forum was held in the Katzen Arts Center with panelists Karen Finney, MSNBC political analyst, and Kevin Madden, public relations executive and republican strategist. Jane Hall, a professor at American University, moderated the Forum.

The panelists disagreed over issues like the impact of young voters in elections and the Tea Party movement and on several occasions Hall attempted to stop them from talking over each other and arguing.

Along with the arguing panelists a new feature of the Forum, the Tweet wall, also distracted the audience. The American Forum Twitter feed was projected onto a screen behind the panelists so the audience could see how other people were reacting. The wall was also an attempt to let people who could not attend the Forum participate in the conversation.

Hall said that she could see people in the audience paying attention to the Twitter feed instead of listening to the panelists. Some of the Tweets were funny, random, or even mean. Since the panelists could not see the Twitter feed, Finney took out her Smartphone during the conversation so she could see what was going on.

Ingham said it would have been better if they had made the Twitter wall more interactive. Since it was completely separate it created a disconnect between the panelists and the audience.

The topic of the forum was “Is Your Vote Up for Grabs,” and was advertised to be a discussion of young voters and the mid-term elections.

Most attendees felt the Forum did not keep the focus on young voters.

Jake Baumer, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the Forum failed in motivating him to go vote in the mid-term elections.

“The campaign in 2008 was directed at younger people and I felt the impact of that, but I haven’t heard anything about these midterm elections and I do not plan on voting,” he said.

The panelists focused a lot of their time talking about elections in previous years and did not address the issue of whether or not young voters should actually be participating in the upcoming midterm elections.

Madden said that young voters often vote for the image of the candidate without knowing how he or she stands on issues and how the issues will personally affect them. When asked by a student if those kinds of voters should be participating in the mid-term elections he did not give a direct answer.

“Most young voters make up their minds in the last three weeks,” said Finney who also avoided answering the question.

Finney also said that people have to do a better job of keeping young people engaged and this Forum was proof of that.

With all the distractions during the Forum most attendees did not feel motivated or engaged when it was over. The Forum proved to be unsuccessful for those attendees who were expecting new information on the mid-term elections, reasons to go out and vote, and unbiased information from the two panelists.