By Will Nunn

As Election Day nears, students and faculty at St. Bonaventure University had the opportunity to engage in political discourse at Campaign Conversation: An Election Roundtable on Oct. 28.

Panelists included Mary Rose Kubal, chair of the university’s Department of Political Science, Conor Amendola, a graduate student who has been covering the elections for PolitiFact, Robert J. McCarthy, 1976 Bonaventure graduate and political analyst at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, and Henry Wojtaszek, a political consultant and former congressional candidate and Niagara County Republican chair.

Dr. Richard Lee, a professor in the university’s Jandoli School of Communication and executive director of the Jandoli Institute, moderated.

The forum opened with each of the speakers listing a race that they are following particularly closely. While a large emphasis was placed on the New York gubernatorial race and the District 23 Congressional campaign, highly publicized races in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and other states were also discussed.

The discussion then was opened up to questions from the audience, which mostly consisted of St. Bonaventure students. Most were student’s in Lee’s Campaigns, Candidates and Current Elections honors course.

The conversation included a wide array of topics, such as the negative discourse surrounding political debates, manipulative tactics of negative election advertisements and expectations of a very high voter turnout.

Amendola connected with his peers in the audience who might be new to the process of voting, urging students to “vote how they feel” and instilling the idea that they “have a lot of freedom in how they vote.”

The panel closed with candid remarks on the importance of voting, especially in local elections, where often the most immediate impact can be felt.

Watch SBU-TV’s report on the panel.

Categories: Jandoli Institute, Politics