Click here to see the entire debate.

The SGA presidential candidates directly challenged each other’s platforms last night in a three-hour Diamondback-sponsored debate that was markedly more heated than Thursday’s SGA-sponsored debate.

After taking a quiz on their knowledge of the university and politics and answering questions posed by the editorial board, the candidates questioned each other’s past experiences and plans for the organization if elected. The candidates used the debate to define their candidacies in much the same way as they have throughout their campaigns.

Student Government Association Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Nick Mongelluzzo and SGA Outlying Commuter Legislator Steve Glickman cast themselves as experienced candidates who already know how to get things done, while former Diamondback opinion columnist Malcolm Harris reveled in his lack of SGA experience and attacked the others for what he saw as their failure this year. NAACP Chapter President Wanika Fisher stressed that her party represented a diversity of viewpoints and focused on the transparency she has promised to bring to the organization.

Glickman and Mongelluzzo questioned each other’s effectiveness during the past year. While the other candidates posed one question to each of their opponents, Mongelluzzo directed two of his three questions toward Glickman, charging that a stalled initiative to plant trees around the campus demonstrated his shortcomings as a leader.

“How do you think you’re going to effectively manage all the issues that come up as president if you can’t even handle those two initiatives?” Mongelluzzo asked.

Glickman responded that he had experienced both success and failure in his two years in the legislator, which he called “part of the learning curve.”

“I don’t think that failure is really a qualification for being the president,” Mongelluzzo replied.

Mongelluzzo also questioned why Glickman, a university senator, had not been at the hearing for post-tenure review. Glickman said he had been on a school-sponsored trip, and his “main reason for being here at the university is to learn.”

For his part, Glickman alleged that Mongelluzzo, who chairs the SGA Governmental Affairs Committee, had been lax in his duty while campaigning by canceling meetings. Mongelluzzo said the committee would have met had there been an issue to discuss and said he took one day off of his campaign to travel to Annapolis.

Harris took the opportunity to link the other candidates, each who ran with the Students Party last year, with an organization he said is fundamentally flawed in its procedures and goals and widely reviled among the student body.

“How do you respond to the criticisms that this is just the same-old?” he asked Fisher.

Fisher, who ran for senior vice president last year as a part of the Students Party and lost, said the SGA would have been run very differently this year had she been elected. Mongelluzzo challenged his underlying premise that students are unhappy with the SGA. Instead, they are simply unaware of what the organization does, he said.

“I think letting them know what we’re doing, they will be happy [with our work],” he said.

Glickman said he made an effort to include former Students Party candidates as well as outsiders in his party to create a “balance” of experience and new ideas.

Fisher asked each candidate about specific aspects of their platforms, questioning how Glickman intended to secure a Metro discount, why Harris wanted to make marijuana possession a less serious offense and how Mongelluzzo’s ticket represented the diversity of the campus.

Mongelluzzo said he would always side with students when their concerns conflicted with those of the administration.

“Cooperation is always preferable, but I’m not going to compromise what we want,” he said.

Time and again, as he has during the week, Glickman said his ONE party has already begun the leadership process, talking to students to form platform issues.

Harris defended his aggressive and unapologetically confrontational leadership style.

“Whether or not [the administration] likes me, that’s up to them,” Harris said. “Whether or not they respect me and the job I’m doing, that’s much more important to me.”

Campaigning ends today, and the elections will take place tomorrow and Wednesday.

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