The debate ain 't for the students at ASU : AZ IMC

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0914debateticket.html

Debate tickets? Forget about it
Donors get to see Bush, Kerry at ASU

Tom Rybarczyk
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 14, 2004 12:00 AM

There's no such thing as public seats for next month's presidential debate at Arizona State University.

Locally, only donors who've given or are willing to give $100,000 or more to help put on the debate here will likely obtain tickets to the Oct. 13 event at ASU's Gammage Auditorium, said Virgil Renzulli, head of the ASU Presidential Debate Steering Committee.

A group of ASU students chosen by lottery will get inside Gammage to see President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry.

For the rest of the Valley's residents, live seating will be out of reach.

"This is a television event. It is not intended to have a big audience," Renzulli said.

He said the university will receive 30 to 50 tickets. "I think there was an assumption in the beginning that since we were holding the event, we would have control of the tickets."

Most of the arrangements are being dictated by security concerns, both here and at the first two planned debates.

The University of Miami, site of the first debate on Sept. 30, is holding an essay contest to determine which students might get inside that debate.

The university has taken security one step further than ASU by requiring their students to wear lanyards displaying their student identification cards on campus until after the debate, said Margot Winick, University of Miami spokeswoman.

The Commission on Presidential Debates is not saying yet how many seats will be available for the Miami and Tempe debates or for a debate at Washington University in St. Louis.

ASU students who don't receive tickets can join their classmates at Wells Fargo Arena to watch a telecast, Renzulli said. The public also will be allowed to come to the arena, but he said details of how to get those tickets have not yet been worked out.

Washington University, which has hosted two presidential debates in the past 12 years, was allotted about 100 seats for their students in the past, said Steve Givens, head of the Washington University's Presidential Debate Steering Committee. All the tickets it received will be offered to students in a lottery.

"I think we all knew it was going to be different," Givens said.

Seating at ASU's Gammage will be cut down to 300 to 400 seats from the usual capacity of 3,500, Renzulli said. About 90 percent of the available seats will go to guests of the Bush and Kerry camps. Other seats will be roped off for television cameras, each location requiring 40 seats.

Outside the building, about 1,000 reporters are expected to camp in a media filing center that will be constructed by the university. The tentlike structure will house telephone lines, televisions and high-speed Internet.

The huge turnout is expected because this will be the last debate before the Nov. 2 election. An overflow area at the Student Recreation Complex will house those who don't get media credentials early enough.

Renzulli said security and provisions for the media have helped push the cost for the debate to $2.5 million, most of which the university has raised through private donors. Part of that donated money, $750,000 of it, had to be put up to bring the debate to Tempe.

As of Monday, the institution was about $400,000 shy of its goal.

The local donors who don't get inside Gammage will be treated to dinner at Old Main the night of the event where they will be joined by state legislators.

Renzulli sees ASU's role as an important steppingstone for the university and the Phoenix area.

"We think it's a win-win situation for ASU, the entire Valley and state," he said. "This is an opportunity for us to show off our university, show off Tempe, the major metropolitan area and state."

Reach the reporter at tom.rybarczyk@arizonarepublic.com.