Diamonds and pearls don’t lose their luster

By David McGrath Schwartz (contact)

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007 | 3:54 p.m.

She asked Hillary Clinton, diamonds or pearls?

And now Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval, a 22-year-old UNLV student, is being derided for her lightweight question to close Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate.

“My phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” she said Friday.

One student confronted her immediately after the debate: “You gave our university a bad reputation.”

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have smarter, substantive questions to ask the candidates. Her first choice dealt with storing nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain, an issue she had researched extensively. But CNN told her to ask the other question, which she had offered for fun, as a way to close the otherwise contentious debate with some levity.

Parra-Sandoval found herself in that position after CNN asked a UNLV professor for names of students to pose questions at the debate. Parra-Sandoval, who as a 6-year-old was sneaked into the United States by her mother and who was naturalized last year, volunteered. She loves discussing public policy and politics as a member of the Political Science Honor Society at UNLV.

She proposed a question about paying for children’s health care. CNN rejected it.

The network asked her to come up with other questions — including a fun one.

So she did. One dealt with pulling out of Iraq. The other was on Yucca Mountain.

She racked her brain for a third question. The fun one. CNN was waiting. Then her eyes fell on her MySpace page — and saw a backdrop of pearls.

Bingo.

Bridget Sharp, a CNN producer, instructed her to memorize both the Yucca Mountain and diamonds-or-pearls questions.

Almost two hours into the debate Thursday, a CNN staffer asked her to get ready to ask the fun question.

This would be her moment, and she thought she’d be allowed to ask the Yucca Mountain question too, she said.

But no sooner did she pose the question that caused Clinton to laugh — and to answer “both” — than moderator Wolf Blitzer announced the end of the debate. Some of the male candidates, hoping for a piece of the action, were left muttering “diamonds” as the cameras pulled back.

“I feel like I was used a little,” Parra-Sandoval said Friday.

A CNN spokesperson said, “With less than a minute to go after a two-hour contentious debate, it seemed like a nice way to close the evening.”

For all the discussion launched by her question, Parra-Sandoval said she has no regrets about participating.

She said she developed “some tough skin” while serving as an intern for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

When senators faced criticism, “they still stood there, still debated, still spoke to people. It didn’t get them down. So why should it affect me?”

Parra-Sandoval had yet to see herself on TV on Friday afternoon. Her take on the debate? She was impressed by Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Sen. Joe Biden.

“They answered the questions very thoroughly,” she said. She’s still undecided, though, on whom she will caucus for come Jan. 19.

OK, Maria, back at you: pearls or diamonds?

“I prefer pearls because I already have diamonds — my parents.”