Two political heavyweights, Howard Dean and Rick Santorum, squared off Oct. 18, before a packed Bailey Hall to do what moderator Sam Nelson, director of the Cornell Forensics Society, called "intellectual battle."

Dean, the Democratic challenger, is a former governor, former presidential candidate and former chair of the Democratic National Convention. Santorum, the Republican challenger, is a former U.S. representative and one of the presidential candidates who recently lost to Mitt Romney in this election's Republican primary.

The two answered questions from Nelson, a senior ILR lecturer, and audience members. Both candidates were often applauded by the audience.

Santorum opened the debate by saying that the "question before us as a society" was the direction we wanted society to go. He said that he saw the founding ideals of the United States as a limited government with God-given rights. He added that he feared that we were going away from the founding ideas of the Constitution and warned that we should avoid a government that structures society from the top down, which he called the "dominant system in Europe."

Dean countered him by saying the Constitution needs to change and to evolve, mentioning, for example, how the original allowed for slavery. He noted that the people who wanted to stick to the original ideas of the Constitution didn't complain when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling (which freed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on independent political efforts). He accused conservatives of finding a new right in the Constitution to give unlimited money for campaigns, that the founders never intended.

The two kept to the expected talking points of their respective parties on such issues as higher education, student loans and health care. For example, Santorum upheld the Republican position that government should encourage free enterprise; Dean countered with the Democratic response that enterprise can be good, but sometimes fails. Santorum stirred up big support when he said that the government should "let the marketplace work," but Dean got no fewer cheers when he said that the free market "does not work in health care, period."

The questions from students concerned such pertinent student issues as job prospects after graduation, but also touched on such topics as the threat of a nuclear Iran and resolutions from the United Nations. Both debaters were optimistic about the younger generations, saying they would be like no other, and that the employment rate after graduation will go down. Dean credited students as being the main force to help defeat SOPA, the proposed bill to regulate parts of the Internet.

The event was part of the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation Great Debate Series and was sponsored by Cornell College Democrats, Cornell College Republicans, the Young America's Foundation, the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs and Cornell's Department of Policy Analysis and Management.

Law student Steven Mark is a writer intern for the Cornell Chronicle.