By Merrill Balassone
While the 2012 presidential campaign is just starting to heat up, USC’s campus politicos already have established a weekly fix on the latest happenings from the campaign trail.
The new series of noontime conversations - called “Road to the White House 2012: Politics, Media and Technology” - will take place each Wednesday through Nov. 16 and continue through 2012, including discussions on campaign tactics, media coverage and prominent public policy questions.
The weekly events are a joint effort of the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development's Judith and John Bedrosian Center on Governance and Public Enterprise, the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy and USC Dornsife’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics.
“Creating an opportunity for well-informed, engaging dialogue on the differing political, media and policy perspectives on the 2012 presidential election is an exciting and important contribution to the USC community and beyond,” said Daniel Mazmanian, director of the Bedrosian Center.
The campaign-focused conversations build on the Unruh Institute's "Students Talk Back" series that for three years has brought the USC community together with professional political experts to talk state and national politics.
On Wednesday, panelists will dissect how so-called millennials - young voters born between 1980 and 1995 - will impact the 2012 election.
“This really offers students and faculty alike a real-world, real-time chance to combine breaking events with academic theory and history,” said Geoffrey Cowan, director of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, who will moderate Wednesday’s panel.
Nearly 100 students, faculty and staff attended the series’ kickoff event on Aug. 31, when top political strategists from Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaigns shared the stage with student leaders representing the USC College Republicans and USC College Democrats.
“Our only rule is that every discussion includes students not just as audience members but as participants,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute. “Our goal is to not only expose them to the world of politics and government but to help them see they can be a part of it.”
(Schnur did voice a second rule that would govern Wednesday’s respectful banter: “Those who disagree with you may be your opponent, but they’re not your enemy.”)
“It’s way early [in the election cycle], but it’s interesting to be able to dialogue about it with both sides,” said David Azevedo, a student in the Master of Public Administration Program, who questioned panelists about how Obama must craft his campaign narrative.
“It’s also fun because it shows a lot of students can hang with outside experts who’ve been working in the field for awhile,” added senior Bobby Almeida.
Upcoming panels are slated to include discussions on how issues with the housing market, California budget, the health care debate and immigration will impact November’s election.
For more information on the upcoming panel discussions and to RSVP, visit here.
