Making it inside the debate

By Ben Honingford, The State Press
Slim to none, and slim just left. That's what I told the local NBC Channel 12 reporter when he asked what I thought my chances were of actually getting inside Gammage Auditorium

The vast majority of the 3,000 seats inside Gammage went to delegates and other state officials, leaving a slim number for ASU to divvy out to major University donors and students.

According to the ASU debate website, a computer-based random number generator algorithm was used to select 300 numbers from the 15,177 entries. After all the potential recipients were notified and identified, 201 potential students. The algorithm was reviewed by a professor of mathematics, and the entire process was reviewed by an ASU student leader to ensure it was conducted fairly. After verifying the recipients were students, the number was down to 201.

After doing the math on my cell phone calculator, I realized that I had a little less than 2 percent chance of being just a potential ticket recipient, let alone actually going.

Early reports estimated, at the most, only a few dozen students behinds would find a seat to the historic event. So even when I was notified last Thursday that I was one of the few hundred potential ticket recipients, I tried not to get my hopes up.

At 8:19 a.m. Wednesday, just hours before the debate, I received an e-mail asking me to report to Tempe Fire Training Facility just east of campus, to go through security clearances and Secret Service checks.

I was going to the debate.

Even if I were in the darkest balcony corner of Gammage, behind the largest pole, I was still closer than any of the more than 800 media cooped up inside their air-conditioned tent in the parking lot.

The training facility served as the starting point for more than just the lucky students. Students wandered past doors with scotch taped labels reading RNC, DNC, and ASU guests. Fortunately for all, each of the groups were shipped into the event on separate busses.

Penetrating the fort set up around Gammage was fairly simple. At approximately 2:35 p.m., the buses promptly unloaded its passengers across from IHOP and next to 5 mounted policemen guarding the perimeter.

After passing another identification check and emptying pockets for the imported airport metal detectors, I had made it past security.

Like cattle funneled through a chute we walked through the front doors of Gammage, greeted by former Tempe mayor, Neil Guiliano.

With secret servicemen's earpieces hissing in the background and military personnel peering down from Gammage's elevated walkways, a middle-aged couple approached Giuliano just before me.

"We're here for the debate," the woman said as she handed Giuliano her ticket.
Giuliano stopped, perplexed for a moment, then spoke, "I'm sorry, but these are tickets for the Bush campaign viewing party at Bank One Ballpark."

I'm just glad Neil was working the door. He smiled at my official ticket, as he let me pass through

Don't let television fool you. The schmoozing in lobbies in the hours leading up to the debate is where best rhetoric is exchanged.

While some students tried to cram for their mid-terms while waiting for the doors to open, those most politically adept could walk up to familiar local, state, and national public figures and shoot the breeze.

If you want to live like a Republican, you have to vote like a Democrat,said Paul Morabito to a group of listeners. Morabito is the Chairman of the California Costal Conservancy, and owns and operates companies that operate multiple Jiffy Lube franchises in California and Nevada.

Politics dominated the majority of conversations as people poured in, heating up the room as the afternoon sun beamed through the giant glass panes of Gammage's taupe lobby. After opening the auditorium at a little after 4 p.m., and more intense schmoozing, the crowd began to find their seats.

I am in awe, said Elizabeth Wylde, pre-law junior. Isn't this incredible?

Debate moderator Bob Schieffer swiveled around in his chair, indicating with his finger to the crowd burning a hole in his back, "One minute till airtime."

With the stage illuminated the sound of Tom Brokaw's voice echoed to my ears from the NBC platform through the hushed auditorium. The final debate for the title of most powerful leader of the free world, in one of the most heated elections ever recorded, was live from ASU.