Kent State alumna Alexis Mundis stood and proposed a toast to the more than 30 people gathered in the Professor’s Pub to watch the last scheduled debate between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“Here’s to the group and here’s to Hillary,” she said.

Underneath dim lighting, people ate, drank and played Wii bowling as they waited for the debate to begin.

As it got closer to crunch time, the KSU Students for Hillary began to pack the back portion of the bar armed with campaign signs, buttons and shirts reading “Meet Me In Ohio!”

The mood in the room quickly changed when footage of last week’s debate in Austin, Texas began to play on the TV screen. When the footage changed to a more recent clip of Clinton attacking Obama, her supporters cheered and applauded.

“There have been lots of pamphlets from the Obama campaign going around spreading mistruths about Sen. Clinton and her support of NAFTA,” said Mundis. “It’s very hurtful to see a fellow Dem use Karl Rove tactics to try to get ahead.”

As Clinton got more aggressive in the debate, the crowd in the pub became more aggressive in their commentary.

“That’s not fair,” one Clinton supporter yelled as Tim Russert grilled Clinton about her voting record on NAFTA.

Once Clinton began to speak, it became silent and all eyes were fixed on the TV screen.

“I really just want to see a one-two punch tonight,” Allen Brown, junior international relations major, said. “This will show people what each candidate is made of, and I can only hope they vote based on record, not rhetoric.”

Contact public affairs reporter Sasha Parker at [email protected].