Five days to go until the election, and Harvard political partisans ratcheted up the rhetoric last night, engaging in two "presidential" debates.

The "Final Face-off," held in the junior common room of Quincy House, featured a debate between Democrats Marc Stad '01 and Jessica L. Richman '01 and Republicans Jason P. Brinton '00-'02 and Heather A. Woodruff '03. All four are officers for their respective campus political groups.

IOP Director and former Arkansas Senator David H. Pryor moderated the debate.

The first issue to come up was the competing tax cut plans of Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore '69.

While the Bush partisans promoted an across-the-board tax cut, the Gore camp said such a cut would damage the country's prospects for economic prosperity in the future.

In terms of education, the Republicans advocated the implementation of vouchers on a state level.

"We need to eliminate the soft bigotry of low expectations," Republican Woodruff said, imitating a phrase often used by her candidate. "I think we need to look to alternatives to reward productivity."

The Democrats, however, said they believed that public schools should not be slighted in favor of private schools, and that the voucher programs would result in cuts in public education--where they said it would hurt the most.