The revolution may not be televised, but at least you can watch the third installment of the presidential debates Wednesday.
"It's an important time, and the whole world is paying attention to what we do during this election, to kind of see if we are going along the same course that we have been, or we are going to try and start changing our course," said Leon Howard, a UNM law student who will host a debate watch party at the SUB Ballroom from 6 to 9 p.m.
He stressed the event's nonpartisanship, and said he had put out a call to the community to get involved. Kevin Fullerton and James Black from the Trillion Space responded, as did Mark Fine from PAC505, a local activist group.
"We're encouraging all types of different students to get involved," Howard said. "And those groups kind of really took the initiative to get involved with the event. I made the announcement generally to the whole law school. The idea was just to get students together all over the campus and kind of get a large viewship among students."
Black will print custom political designs onto T-shirts. It's $5 for a print if you bring your own shirt, or $10 if you buy the shirt from Black.
Ace Barbershop owner DJ Chach will lay down the funk before the debates.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
"The focus is showing the debates, and we only have the space until 9," Howard said. "I'm sure people will be hanging around, but there won't be any party happening (after 9)."
They will project live blog posts onto the wall on either side of the screen from two Republican and Democrat national political bloggers who will comment on the debates.
"We want to have both viewpoints available," Fine said. "We're trying to line up some other projections, too. We're trying to come up with some other images that'll run at the same time."
Fine showed the first debates in a park; about 100 people and some families watched. He did the same thing with the Republican National Convention four years ago, projecting images over the screen.
"The idea is that people, especially the younger generation of Americans, are a little bit less likely to take on really active forms of political action," he said. "If there's something that's more passive, or just easier, they're more likely to congregate. That definitely goes for me as well.. It's just an opportunity for the community to get together and share an experience together that is important to galvanizing or strengthening the progressive community."
