DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Sara Vasquez 

Composition II – Eng203-09 

Professor Claire King 

 

Third Democratic Presidential Debates 

Candidate of Focus: Bernie Sanders 

Time Began: 8pm Time Finished: 9pm 

 

The Exigence: 

The first issue tackled during the debates was healthcare in America. It appears all democrats are fighting to achieve healthcare for all but the path to get there and the costs are vary depending on the candidate. I believe that everyone on stage were all well intentioned on this topic but I do not believe that Bernie can win us over with his plan of action, which is to completely get rid of private insurance companies. Other candidates such as Castro, Buttigieg, and Biden all say they people should be able to choose whether they want to keep their current insurance of switch over. At first, I thought I would immediately side with Bernie but the opposition shown to his plan on stage tells me how America might react to this plan as well. 

 

The Audiences: 

This debate was held in Houston at the Texas Southern University. We were told that the audience was made up of invitees from the Democratic National Committee, and part of the TSU student body. I imagine that this makes for a diverse crowd with various ages and races, especially because TSU is one of the largest historically black universities in America. One of the panelists, Jorge Ramos from Univision, started off the show by giving a speech in Spanish. “En este paistambien se hablamos español,” then he translates to reveal to white America that in this country we also speak Spanish. The crowd roared at this sentiment and through that I can inference that there are many Latinos in the crowd or people who take this issue very seriously. The next topic after health was tackling racism in this country and a panelist partly introduced the topic by letting us know it is the number one issue among young voters.

 

The Constraints: 

The rules laid out at the beginning were as follows: each candidate gets 1 minute and 15 seconds to address a direct question, and 45 seconds for rebuttals. There’s a light to indicate when their time is up by turning red and if anyone interrupts, they will get less time to answer. I did notice them implementing this rule but maybe not every time. There were points where conversation got a little heated, but I noticed other candidates would take that opportunity to unite each other as democrats who plan to work together to take down Trump. On that issue they definitely seemed on the same page. 

In another debates I’ve noticed of heard that it plays out like a reality show, and the loudest contestant gets to run it. Now unfortunately I did not have time to watch the full thing, but I feel the moderators maintained control and all speakers remained respectful. 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.