Dean and Rove Serve Up a Boring Debate

Students and Boulder community members arrived in throngs to Mackey Auditorium in hopes of seeing two hours of heated debate between former Democratic Party leader, Howard Dean, and Republican political strategist, Karl Rove.

Students and local residents didn’t exactly get what they wanted, summarizing the meeting as slow to start and picking up more during the question and answer segment.

“It was a little sleepy for the first eight-tenths of it,” said Nick Rosen, a 35-year-old Boulder resident and registered Democrat.

After opening statements, Dean and Rove discussed positions on health care, the stimulus bill, the national deficit, and Medicare. Dean spoke in length about how both Republicans and Democrats need to take responsibility for getting America back on track.

“It was kind of like Fox or MSNBC, no need to leave your couch,” Rosen said, in summary.

Nathan Rist, a senior architecture major and usher at Mackey Auditorium is a veteran of political debates hosted at the University of Colorado. He categorized his feelings as frustrated.

“A lot people come in with their own political opinions and they could really care less what’s actually spoken on stage. A lot of people probably came in and they had the exact same opinions that they came out with,” said Rist.

David Burg, a 25-year-old CU graduate didn’t agree with Rove’s statements in the debate but said that he had a profound respect for Rove’s contributions to political strategy. Burg cited Rove’s use of census data and how it redefined how elections are now handled.

“He is fairly close to being a political genius,” said Burg.

Both Rosen and Rist got excited once the microphone was turned towards the audience.

“There was this awesome question from this activist in the audience who asked Howard Dean why there had been no special prosecutor assigned to George Bush’s selling of the Iraq war to the American public,” Rosen said.

After defending both parties’ faults in the handling of the beginnings of the Iraq war, Dean said that he thought it stemmed from former Vice President Dick Cheney lying to former President George W. Bush.

The crowed erupted with huge applause.

Rove told the audience that Dean’s statement was the most divisive thing he has heard Dean say.

“It made me realize that [Iraq] is still a real hot button issue for the Democrats,” Rosen said.