“We are really excited to have Bernie Sanders on campus,” ASMSU President Domonique Clemons said. “We are hoping that this will help students engage with the election process a little bit more closely.”

The process of finding a candidate, vice president for governmental affairs and political theory and constitutional democracy senior Bryn Williams said, was less of a selection and more of a search.

Williams said he began looking into organizing the event in August, and started contacting presidential campaigns from both the Democratic and Republican parties as early as June.

Sanders was the first candidate to give him a definite yes.

“My main goal in starting it so early was just to make it clear to the candidates that we are very serious about bringing someone here to speak to the students, speak to our interests and involve us,” Williams said. “The biggest part of it was just the fact that (Sanders’) campaign has been so willing to work with us as a student group.”

Williams said he reached out to every candidate that has been on the debate stage, and at one point had a significant interest in bringing Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to MSU as well, believing Paul would resonate well with students. Paul has since exited the race.

“I truly believe that, as a nonpartisan organization, ASMSU has a responsibility to do its due diligence in reaching out to both sides of the aisle,” Williams said.

A longtime project of Williams, succeeding in bringing a candidate to MSU is an accomplishment he takes pride in.

“It really means the world to me … given how long it took to set this whole thing up … to see it actually come into fruition, it is personally very gratifying,” Williams said.“I am incredibly excited for the MSU community to be able to engage with the actual politician himself. … Hopefully this will allow people see (how) politics matters to all of us.”

MSU College Republicans president and political theory and constitutional democracy senior Jeff Litten, however, was not happy with ASMSU only bringing a Democratic candidate.

“We as Republicans feel betrayed, because ASMSU said … they advocated that they would be bringing two (candidates)one from each party,” Litten said.

Litten also criticized Sanders’ Democratic Socialist beliefs, claiming the candidate’s goals are unrealistic.

“I believe that this will have a negative impact on students because it encourages students to believe things, ideals that they want to believe in, but might not be as possible as many would hope,” Litten said.

Earlier this month, MSU College Republicans arranged Ohio Governor and Republican candidate John Kasich’s town hall at the Union.

“We didn’t pay a single cent on behalf of it, the campaign did everything, and we were able to organize and get 600 people to come to the event, when now they’re spending $35,000 to get enough people to fill the Breslin,” Litten said.

Bill 52-44, written by Williams, allocated $35,000 for the purposes of bringing a 2016 presidential candidate to MSU, and was intended to be used to cover any costs involved with having them appear. Clemons said none of this funding will be used on Sanders or any other candidates, and almost none of it will be used overall.

“One of the things that we figured out as we were working with the various candidates is that we are able to get them to cover most of the cost of everything,” Clemons said. “The only cost that we would have is promoting. Now, we are not going to spend $35,000 on promoting an event, we will probably spend maybe $100-200 of that.”

Litten acknowledged that none of the allocated money is going to Sanders’ campaign, but criticized ASMSU for using their money, financed by student taxes, rather than the campaign’s to promote the event. 

Clemons said while ASMSU has so far only confirmed the appearance of Sanders, they are still open to having other candidates come to campus.

“We have had, as recently as this week, some preliminary talks with other campaigns. ... Next week is the week if a candidate wants to come, but we are holding out and we will see who else we can bring,” Clemons said.

Political science prelaw junior Aaron Stephens, co-president of Students for Sanders East Lansing, also played a pivotal role in bringing Sanders to campus. Stephens said he had been trying to organize a rally with different grassroots movements around Michigan and considered holding an event at the Capitol.

“When (ASMSU) decided they were going to try to get a presidential candidate there, we saw that as a great opportunity, so we immediately passed this up the campaign trail and said ‘is this a possibility?’... and campaign people were ecstatic about it,” Stephens said.

Stephens said he then got in contact with Williams and ASMSU and acted as a bridge between the organization and the campaign.

“The normal stigma is for young people to go ahead and say, ‘well, my vote’s not going to count’ or ‘I don’t care about politics,’” Stephens said. “Yet, with a candidate like Bernie Sanders, you have such a movement with people under the age of 25. … I think it’ll make anybody that is hesitant with getting involved in politics or hesitant about voting to say, ‘maybe I should get involved, maybe I should go out and vote,’ even if you don’t agree with him, vote for somebody else. It’s all about getting people involved.”

MSU College Democrats communications director and social relations and policy junior Daniel Eggerding said he was excited by news of the appearance, and said the organization would be discussing the rally heavily in the upcoming days.