Now that the primaries have narrowed the number of viable major-party presidential candidates to three, ScienceDebate2008 promises to give each of them an opportunity to address an issue that is not strictly partisan: science and technology policy and what it means for the future of our nation and the world.
The venue and date are set: Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, PA, April 18, 2008, shortly before the Pennsylvania primaries.
The campaigns of Senators McCain, Clinton, and Obama have all expressed interest but have not yet committed to the event. I recommend that you do what I just did: make a small contribution to the candidate of your choice and then compose an e-mail to the campaign (the contribution is less important than the e-mail), encouraging the candidate to take part in the debate, and laying out the science and technology issues that concern you the most.
For me, those are climate change and science education.
I’ll close with the following excerpt from an e-mail that I got from the leaders of ScienceDebate2008.
All three remaining campaigns have now contacted us and are considering our invitation. They’re starting to consider what you knew all along:
Any credible vision for a sustainable and prosperous, secure national future depends on a President’s ability to capture the public’s imagination on the major policy questions, questions like climate change and economic competitiveness in a global low-cost science and technology economy, like clean energy and education and healthcare and biodiversity and scientific integrity and the recently released Grand Challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org) from our friends at the NAE. These questions are of great concern to the American public, and debating them will be an important way to win the moderate swing voters that will determine the outcome of this election.
Please take a moment and do everything you can to encourage the candidates to attend Science Debate 2008, and to tell others about our initiative.
* Email, call the Clinton campaign at (703) 469-2008 and write to Hillary Clinton for President 4420 North Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203
* Email, call the McCain campaign at (703) 418-2008 and write to John McCain 2008 P.O. Box 16118 Arlington, VA 22215
* Email, call the Obama campaign at (866) 675-2008, and write to Obama for America P.O. Box 8102 Chicago, IL 60680
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