(Los Angeles)  Students at the University of Southern California won a video contest to pose a key question to Senator McCain live on MTV tonight. 

The question – What’s Your Plan to Fight Global Warming? was aired on the MTV-MySpace Presidential Dialogue series brought Senator John McCain in front of a live student audience at the University of Southern New Hampshire.  The video received the highest ranking and the most votes of any submitted.

Students appearing in the video are volunteers with the California Public Interest Research Group’s (CALPIRG) What’s Your Plan? Campaign, an effort to bring the concerns of young people straight to the candidates instead of waiting for them to come to us.

“With the failure of both the recent Republican You Tube Debate and Democratic Nevada Debates to address issues like global warming that are of concern to young people,” said Ruchika Gupta who spearheaded submission of the video question, “It was essential to hear Senator McCain and all the other presidential candidates articulate their plans on an issue of such critical importance to our generation.

Gupta, a USC junior and student leader with the CALPIRG Chapter at UCLA is helping to spearhead the group’s What’s Your Plan? Campaign which has so far talked to all the major  Presidential Candidates more than 100 times across the country.    As part of the campaign, hundreds of student volunteers have appeared at fundraisers, photo-ops and town hall meetings often dominated by older voters and asked the candidates to specially engage young people on issues they care about.  

Issues highlighted by the What’s Your Plan? Campaign include global warming, college affordability, healthcare and financial security.

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CALPIRG is a non-partisan, student directed, organization working to solve public interest problems related to the environment, consumer protection, and government reform.  www.calpirg.org