Texas A&M will host David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, and Ari Fleischer, press secretary for President George W. Bush, to discuss life behind the scenes of the presidential decision making process.
The program, “Guiding those who govern,” will be from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday in Rudder Theatre.
Megan Quinn, international studies senior and director of main programs for the Wiley Lecture series, said getting both speakers to come to A&M was a long process.
“We knew we wanted a program with political balance and getting important figures to come to a program where they will meet with opposition or debate is pretty rare,” Quinn said. “After going through a lot of internal vetting with the MSC and deciding on exactly what we wanted the program to look like, we contacted Washington Speakers Bureau.”
Being able to get both speakers to come a little shocking, Quinn said.
“We were really lucky and honestly a little shocked that these two men were willing to do this program in a way that allowed us to also offer such low student ticket prices,” Quinn said. “We were also really lucky to snag News One Now anchor Roland Martin, an A&M alum, as the moderator after we reached out to him.”
Quinn said after the speakers were booked, contract negotiations and preparations for the actual content of the program took place.
“Which includes a lot of deciding what topics we wanted to hear about and what topics speakers were willing to talk about,” Quinn said. “In the end we think we’ve struck a good balance in preparing them to discuss the ins and outs of presidential politics and the internal workings of the White House.”
Deryle Richmond, associate director for the Memorial Student Center and Wiley advisor, said she hopes students will attend to gain a unique perspective into Capitol Hill.
“As always I hope that these particular caliber of speakers will give us insight into their world, having been part of presidential politics and presidential policy making from that branch of government being in the loop of the White House,” Richmond said.
Tickets are available for sale at the MSC Box Office.
