Posted by BEN BEAUMONT – The mantra of “opportunity overload,” as our students have come to call the Clinton School Speaker Series and other events, increases significantly in a presidential election year — especially one that includes Arkansas’s former governor and first lady as top tier candidates. Kyle Brazzel of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette sat down with Dean Skip Rutherford this week to discuss how the Clinton School plans to capitalize on the election year as a teaching moment, as well as a chance to to enhance its status as a bipartisan center of political discourse in our state. Click here for the entire article. Brazzel attended the Iowa Caucus Watch Party at the Clinton School and discusses that, among other past and future events in his article. Here’s an excerpt:
“One of the theme-lines of the school is academics for the real world,” Rutherford says. And the social nature of politics, particularly on display at caucus, primary and election-night watch parties, is nothing new: “A lot of people want to gauge the reactions of others, they want to be part of a crowd, be a part of a rally,” he says. “That’s sort of the nature of politics.” To that end, the school is considering hosting another watch party Feb. 5 — so-called “Tsunami Tuesday” for its country-spanning dervish of presidential primaries. And the spring roster of public speakers — check www. clintonschool. uasys. edu for an official calendar — will include William Cohen, the former U. S. Secretary of Defense, Ronald Brownstein from the Los Angeles Times and Bob Woodruff, the ABC News anchorman injured in a bomb blast while covering Iraq.
“As you progress down the road of 2008, yeah, there are going to be some incredible opportunities,” Rutherford says.
As well as challenges: one will be to sway members of the public who believe the Clinton School is merely for FOBs, rather than lower-case friends of political discourse.
But Rutherford believes the Iowa Caucus Watch Party was a good start. Among the crowd estimate of 325, “there were people I didn’t even have a clue who they were,” says the dean. And for Rutherford, that’s really saying something.