None of John Kerry’s, John Edwards’ or Howard Dean’s scheduled representatives came to the Peace and Justice Presidential Debate Forum at the Humanities Building Thursday night. Representatives from other political parties, however, attended the event, which featured discussions on the U.S. military budget, occupation in Iraq and civil rights since Sept. 11.

“Even Howard Dean doesn’t have anyone here,” Rolf Lindgren, former vice chair of the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin 2003, said. “You’d think these people would find at least one person in Dane County to represent them.”

George Martin, a representative of the Green Party, said the absence of the three candidates’ representatives demonstrated their mindset. He feels representatives come to campuses because they want to gain student votes.

“What’s new? This isn’t important to them,” he said.

Colin Benedict, a political reporter for WISC-TV, moderated the event and gave each speaker the floor to answer questions.

The four who spoke, which also included the Socialist Party candidate Walter Brown, did not hide their mainly liberal viewpoints. Although Lindgren was the only speaker who leaned toward the right side of political issues, the speakers tended to agree on most of the points, such as the current war in Iraq.

“War doesn’t solve anything,” said Myron Eshowsky, representative for Democratic Party candidate Dennis Kucinich. He added that war has never solved anything. “It never will. We should always negotiate first.”

Another issue the speakers examined was military spending; the four speakers said they would like to see defense funding slashed.

“I’ve seen the waste, waste, waste,” Brown said. He told the crowd he was in the Navy for 27 years and knows where to cut funds. Brown said he would like to see a 50 percent cut overall, with reductions in intelligence operations, military hardware and research and development of new weapons.

Martin gave a spirited response to a question on the state of civil rights in post-Sept. 11 America.

“Our Congress has infringed upon international law, United Nations, our Constitution, our system of checks and balances,” he said to a chorus of applause.

Some debate arose on the issue of international trade. While Lindgren, who favors free trade, said all trades are fair, Martin said he is against free trade because it does not set global standards for workers’ rights and environmental standards.

Forum speakers also discussed favoritism in international policy and whether the United States should cut aid to Israel. The U.S. occupation in Iraq, gun control and weapons of mass destruction in other countries were other issues brought to the panel.

UW sophomore Ben Lien felt the absence of candidates’ representatives did not shed favorable light on their campaign image.

“To me it kind of does prove what [the absent representatives] stand for … that they can’t even come to a small event like this and speak to a handful of people about who they really are,” he said.