Chaminade students
weigh debate

Students at Chaminade University of Honolulu who were required to watch yesterday's presidential debate judged the winner based on issues that they consider critical.

Debate schedule Third debate » Wednesday, Oct. 13 » Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz. Transcript (Commission of Presidential Debates) www.debates.org/pages/ debtrans.html Video (C-SPAN) RealMedia format FREE REAL PLAYER

Many of the 30 students gathered at the Ching Conference Center on campus had to watch the debate for their religion, political science or American history classes. Most said they thought U.S. Sen. John Kerry performed better than President Bush.

"I think that Kerry is naturally a better speaker," senior Lisa Myers said. "He just comes off looking better."

Freshman Dan Mannell agreed but added, "I don't think that's an important aspect of the presidency."

When it came to the issues, the students had different assessments.

Mannell said he favors Bush because the president opposes a draft in favor of an all-volunteer military. During the debate, Kerry also said that he opposed the reinstatement of the draft.

Sophomore Eli Senio also said he thought Kerry did better than Bush.

Senio said his main issue is the Iraq war. Many of his friends and relatives were called to active duty as Army reservists from American Samoa.

"And since we're not citizens, we can't vote," he said.

Senio said too many Americans have died because the war has gone on longer than it should have.

He added that he was disappointed with Bush's response to the latest report that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

But Myers thought too much of the debate was about the war.

"I'm an education major, and I was hoping they would talk a little bit more about that," she said.

Sophomore Michael Devens declared neither candidate qualified because they failed to talk enough about how they are going to create jobs.

"Pretty soon, I'm going to start looking for a job, and I want to know when I go out there to look for a job, there's going to be a job there available for me," Devens said. "They're just not listening to what the issues are."