Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama will share the stage at Columbia's Roone Arledge Auditorium tomorrow for the ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum. The televised event, which will take place on the seventh anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, will be their first in a series of upcoming joint appearances.
The candidates will give separate, back-to-back interviews on Thursday beginning at 8:00 p.m. Judy Woodruff, a PBS News anchor, and Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time magazine, will question McCain and Obama about the role of public service in American society. The event's sponsor, ServiceNation, is a nonpartisan umbrella organization of 118 state and national civic service groups.
Columbia's Arledge Auditorium - which seats approximately 1,200 people - will be filled with members of the press, campaign staff and families of victims of Sept. 11, in addition to students. According to the Columbia Spectator, only about 200 tickets were made available to Columbia students in a university-wide lottery last week.
The appearance will be Obama's first at Columbia, his alma mater, since the beginning of the presidential campaign. McCain delivered the Columbia College Class Day Address in 2006 and his daughter Meghan graduated from the university in 2007.
