By: Beth Casteel
Ohio gubernatorial candidates, Republican Mike DeWine and Democrat Richard Cordray, met in Cleveland on Thursday, Oct. 4, to host a live digital forum called “Talking Jobs With Ohio’s Next Governor.”
Held at the Idea Center near Playhouse Square, which is also home to Cleveland State University’s Film and Digital Media college, the two candidates participated in the forum with Andy Chow of the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau, who served as the forum’s moderator for the evening.
For those students interested in the forum, Cleveland State’s Center for Student Activities & Involvement hosted a live streaming event for those who wanted to watch the forum with other students.
During the forum, the two major-party candidates answered questions on various topics including “education, workforce development and job creations,” from various students and young adults between the ages of 16 to 26 across the state of Ohio.
The reason for the forum was simple: answer the questions that young, job-seeking adults have when it comes to issues that will eventually affect their future and how they go about getting jobs and an education for those careers.
As for the forum itself, it had the candidates appear individually in a back-to-back segment style, where the two were allocated 45 minutes each to discuss the online-submitted questions.
Beginning the forum was the Democratic candidate, Richard Cordray. During his time with the forum, Cordray spoke about a variety of topics including, but not limited to, finding support and jobs for the LGBTQ+ community, instilling skills for future careers amongst students, easing the workload for those who are single parents and higher education opportunities for those in minorities.
As for his section of the forum, the Republican candidate, Mike DeWine, answered a whole slew of questions that included topics such as bringing jobs back to Ohio, the value and standard of state testing and how it could be changed, the rise of the minimum wage and ways of handling the opioid crisis that is growing in the state.
While both candidates received varied questions during their time in the forum, it was a consensus between the two that there are many problems in the state that need to be handled with great care.
The forum happened four days earlier than the candidate’s last debate of the three they agreed upon prior to the election on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
The live stream for the “Talking Jobs With Ohio’s Next Governor” forum is currently available online on Ideasteam’s youtube channel.
You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWJ0yt0a6ts.
Diana Schoder