Tickets remain for Will speech at Salem State

SALEM – Tickets are still available for Salem State College’s first speaker series event of the new academic year.Political commentator and Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post columnist George Will is the featured guest at the Sept. 23 event titled “The Political Argument Today.”Will is expected to discuss the upcoming election and the many issues facing the political landscape of the United States as the first decade of the 21st century winds down.The nationally syndicated conservative columnist served as the editor for the conservative magazine The National Review in the mid-1970s and has been writing his column for the Washington Post since 1979. Will also contributes to Newsweek Magazine writing a bi-weekly back page column.He won the Pulitzer Prize for “distinguished commentary on a variety of topics” in 1977, and has penned two best-selling books about baseball, three books on political philosophy and has published 11 compilations of his columns.TV viewers may remember Will from his time as an analyst on ABC beginning in the 1980s and his work as a founding panelist on the network’s political program This Week with David Brinkley.Although he is considered a staunch conservative, Will has been praised in the past by liberals most notably for condemning the Nixon administration following the Watergate scandal.Will’s appearance is a 180-degree change from the event’s original speakers, liberals John and Elizabeth Edwards, who backed out in late August due to a damaging sex scandal.The former North Carolina senator, two-time Democratic presidential candidate and 2004 vice-presidential nominee revealed late last month that he had an affair with a campaign employee, and admitted to lying about the indiscretion during his most recent presidential campaign.The couple was scheduled to speak about the upcoming election and Elizabeth Edwards’ recent battle with cancer, but the couple has since fallen into political exile following the scandal.Will joins a bevy of political powerhouses to take the stage at Salem State, including former presidents Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.Tickets for Will’s speech range from $10 for students to $75 for premium seating and a post-lecture reception and are available by contacting the college at 978-542-7555. The speech begins at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23 at the college’s O’Keefe Center off of Canal Street in Salem.