The Feb. 29 Road to the White House event featured a panel discussion that dissected the importance of the economy in the upcoming elections. The panel featured Gen Next C.E.O. Michael Davidson, former Barbara Boxer press secretary Julie Wang, Alex Davidson from the USC College Republicans, and Jonathan Cousimano from the USC College Democrats. During the spring semester, USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) is presenting a weekly conversation on the 2012 elections featuring students, faculty, journalists and political experts. This event focused on Recession and Recovery - How will the Economy Shape Election 2012? Despite different views on presidential candidates, the panel echoed the same point about the economy: It is the most crucial issue in this race. Romney, one of the most successful businessmen to ever run for office, was a topic of controversy in this discussion. “Romney, with his business background, has been propelled as the front-runner but just because you are a good business leader, does not mean that you can be a good president,” Cousimano said. “Just because you can balance your company’s budget, it doesn’t mean that you can be in charge of the (federal) budget because they are not the same thing.” Michael Davidson defended Romney by claiming that it is wrong for the country to indict someone simply because they have produced wealth. “This is one of the most qualified people to run for president but we’re dismissing him because we don’t want to get a beer with the guy,” he said. “He produced wealth and he did it legally and has been extremely generous with the money.” The increase of gas prices was also a heavily debated topic with this panel. “President Obama denied the project of the Keystone pipeline, which means that thousands of people won’t get jobs from that,” Alex Davidson said. “Across the country, every person will feel the effect of the gas prices rising.” However, how to tackle the issue varied between individuals on the panel. “A lot of the California economy is derived from the shore and tourism. Off shore drilling would affect that,” Wang said. “After BP, that’s not something that most Californians would support.” “Something has to happen in the long term and something has to happen in the short term,” Michael Davidson said. “We have to do something to signal how we are going to deal with the amount of supply and how to generate more supply to stop the prices from continuing to go up.” The issue of why all of the Republican candidates want to increase military spending concluded the discussion. “Fundamentally, that is the purpose of the government: to defend us,” Michael Davidson said. “Everything else, it’s just what is nice to do.”