Newsman Donaldson draws crowd

"I hate Sam Donaldson like I hate eating peanuts. I can't stop eating them, and I can't stop watching Sam Donaldson."\nLee Hamilton, a former U.S. Representative and director of the Center on Congress started the evening off with this quote from a former constituent. \nHamilton introduced television newsman Sam Donaldson to a full house that left some audience members standing last night in the Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union.\nThe free event was sponsored by the Center on Congress and lasted an hour. Donaldson spoke for about 20 minutes and then took questions from the audience.\nDonaldson has worked for ABC News for the past 40 years and has covered five U.S. presidents. He was chief White House Correspondent from 1977 to 1989 and 1998 to 1999. He is a co-anchor of an ABC News Sunday morning broadcast, has a live Internet newscast and is a correspondent for 20/20. He has won three Emmy Awards and in 1998 was named "Broadcaster of the Year."\nDonaldson was energetic, reflecting on the past when there were only three networks. Topics ranged from the current presidential election to an incident where he was tear-gassed. Donaldson said he thinks this year it is a tactical election, because as a country everything is all right and there are no big national waves.\nDonaldson also commented on the Bush and Gore campaigns. He said people will be voting for who they like. He said he didn't like Bush's speech at the Republican convention whereas he thought Gore emerged from the Democratic convention as more of a likeable guy.\nMany students came to hear him speak simply because he is a well-known public figure.\n"I grew up watching him on TV and on Sunday mornings lately, so I thought it would be interesting to come and hear what he has to say," said Samantha Buchanan, a freshman.\nSophomore Jack Fan said he has always been impressed with Donaldson and his news presentations.\nAt the beginning of Donaldson's speech, the lights in the auditorium unexpectedly went out. The newsman captivated the audience with jokes keeping everyone laughing during the situation. Donaldson said the audience all knows what he looks like and that he would continue in the dark, but the lights came on within a couple minutes.\nThe night ended with a standing ovation and with Donaldson giving peace signs to the crowd.\nHamilton said he thought the speech was terrific.\n"I don't ... think he was just informative ' he was an entertainer," Hamilton said.\nSenior Jen Burnett said she was surprised that the audience didn't ask more questions that pertained to her generation, such as funding for higher education.\n"I thought he was a really good speaker," Burnett said. "He was funny, but it seems like he was very rehearsed as well."\nSenior Raju Raval said she thought he avoided commenting on how members of the media are biased as to what information they allow the public to know about, but Raval said he liked things overall.\n"I thought he looked very professional," Raval said. "He spoke like he knew what he was talking about and was very polished"