Gov: Town Hall

     Today students participated in a mock town hall meeting, a simulated nationally televised event in which Democratic and Republican candidates answered audience prepared questions. Political candidates will participate in televised debates and town hall meetings to convey their ideas to voters as part of their campaigning efforts. Our mock town meeting will be a focused debate in which the candidates will debate four issues: foreign policy, crime and punishment, environment, and social services for the poor. Candidate groups developed their talking points and audience members developed their questions using statistics and candidate’s position statements on the four issues.

Each candidate gave a 10-second introduction at the start of the town hall meeting. This was followed by the moderator moving around the audience and allowing one audience member to ask the candidates a question. After a candidate answered a question, the moderator asked whether any other candidates wanted to respond. One or two other candidates could then offer opposing viewpoints or ask a question of the candidate about his or her answer. Each new question from the audience was addressed to a new candidate. At the end of the national town hall meeting, each candidate had 30 seconds to summarize why he or she should be the next president.