Presidential Candidates To Speak at Harvard

Chris Matthews will bring “Hardball” back to Harvard this fall—and this time, at least six of the 10 Democratic presidential candidates will square off with the notoriously combative political pundit.

Beginning with Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., on Monday, Oct. 13, MSNBC’s Matthews will conduct a one-on-one interview with each of the candidates in the John F. Kennedy, Jr. Forum in a special series of the show entitled “Hardball: Battle for the White House.”

After the interview, Harvard students, professors and others will have the chance to question the candidates on live national television

Four candidates—retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.—have yet to R.S.V.P., according to Institute of Politics (IOP) Director Dan Glickman.

“We want them all to come,” said Glickman, a former nine-term representative from Kansas who served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton, from 1995 to 2001.

Only scheduling difficulties have prevented the final four from signing on to the series, Glickman said.

According to Glickman, the series is the brainchild of Matthews, who was an IOP visiting fellow in 2001 and approached Glickman with the forum idea months ago.

Matthews selected the IOP location because of his longtime affinity for Harvard—and because of Cambridge’s proximity to New Hampshire, the first state to hold a presidential primary, Glickman said.

Three hundred tickets for each broadcast will be distributed to undergraduates through an online lottery, IOP Vice President Betsy A. Sykes ’04 said.

According to Sykes, the lottery for seats at the broadcast featuring Edwards will begin on Monday.

An additional 500 seats will be reserved for faculty members, KSG students, and local Democratic activists, as well as members of the Harvard Republican Club and the College Democrats, Sykes said.

Sykes said she hopes Harvard students get involved with the political process.

“The primary aim of hosting the candidates is to get Harvard undergraduates interested in the future of their country,” Sykes said.

Having all the candidates at Harvard to hash over their political agendas is a goal once thought to be near impossible.

In 1996, Janet Brown, then-chief of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), said that the IOP’s forum space was far too small to ever play host to a candidates’ debate.

For the 2000 election cycle, Harvard’s connection to Former Vice President Al Gore ’69 posed a problem and the IOP did not file an application to host a debate, according to IOP executive director Catherine McLaughlin.

—For more information on the lottery for tickets, go to http://www.iop.harvard.edu.