Health care, tax cuts, immigration and the topic of Big Bird charged the room with intense discussion between ISU College Republicans and ISU College Democrats for the 2012 Campaign Debate.

Republicans were declared the winners by the panel of judges. The debate was part of the First Amendment Day series.

Democrat Tim Nelson, freshman in political science, said that although public channels like PBS are funded by public sponsors, a lot of the funding only comes from larger cities. Nelson said rural area programming, like Iowa, will lose its public broadcast.

“At one point in time TLC, which is known as ‘the Learning Channel,’ was actually funded partially by the government,” Nelson said. “The minute government was cut for that it went from the Learning Channel to ‘Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’ and other great classics like that.”

Republican Khayree Fitten, freshman in political science, rebutted with a more serious tone to remind audience members of real issues that need to be publicized.

“I find it humorous that in the past six days we’ve heard 13 mentions of Big Bird and Elmo but zero about the economy from President [Barack] Obama,” Fitten said.

When asked what their candidates were going to about the 12 million illegal immigrants and the immigration policy, Fitten was ready to respond with Romney’s beliefs.

“Governor Romney first believes that immigration is the power and responsibility of the federal government. So his first priority, and this is a national security issue as well, is to have a stable and secure border,” Fitten said. “In order to prevent illegal immigration we have to have a better legal immigration system.”

Nelson agreed that the United States needs a stronger border and better immigration laws to allow immigrants into the country.

“The thing is, we already have millions of immigrants here and they’re not going to go away. This idea about ‘self-deportation’ not only does it not work but the times that they’ve actually tried it it’s actually backfired,” said Nelson. “President Obama believes in the Dream Act, which actually allows half-way to citizenship to those who are here.”

Although the College Republicans won the debate, Ames resident Jo Rod didn’t like the fact that not all members of that team spoke, while all College Democrat debate members spoke during the debate.

“I have one objection: The Republicans won but not all spoke,” Rod said. “[One republican] never said one word and the Democrats all spoke. I think the Republicans won by a hair.”

Mischa Olson, the senior in biology who introduced Obama during his visit to Iowa State on Aug. 28, thought overall the debate was good.

“I thought it was a very good debate,” Olson said. “I wish the Democrats would have been a little more aggressive in going after what my opinion are falsehoods on the Republican side.”

The 2012 Campaign Debate is one of several student debates that are expected to take place during the remainder of the 2012 election season. The presidential election will happen on November 6.