punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

Here is video of yesterday’s presidential debate, not quite in its entirety, but close enough to give you a taste of the action.

Many thanks to my girlfriend Shannon (put down your gossip diary Snow, I’m not taking about the prez) for recording most of the footage.

It might not seem like I did much with the video this time around, but I assure you, this took over six straight hours of work to get online.

I know only a handful of people will watch, but it’s a matter of principle, right? Right?! (Crazed look in bloodshot eyes.)

There are several missing questions from the audience that took place between where the second last video cuts off, and the last one picks up. I do have the majority of these on film, since we figured the battery on our main camera would probably run out before these windbags finished talking, but I do not presently have the second camera with me, so you’ll have to wait on that if you are really keen.

The section between question six and the anti-elitism rant (basically the last 17 minutes of the first tape) is currently missing as well, mainly because the public Mac I uploaded that tape onto crashed not once, but twice, and I will commit suicide if I have to upload the footage again today.

There have already been two posts on the debate so far, so I’ll refrain from subjecting you to my full opinion just yet. I’ll just say that Greg’s performance seemed to be the big topic of discussion afterwards. I talked with a few people who felt like he definitely had the best stage presence, and others who thought he was a disgrace. Seems the audience either loved or hated him, but given that the ones who hated him seemed to be the ones who would never vote for him in a million years anyway, he may be onto a good strategy. I think his advantage with a certain portion of the audience came from his contrast with the other two candidates. Whatever the question, Saulnier usually comes off as a little like Tracy Flick from Election, and Bailey tends to answer in a way that seems somewhat passive and drippingly sweet. Their styles leave an opening for Greg, who, if not exactly eloquent, always seems passionate, active, and utterly sincere.

Enough of my thoughts for now. Here are the videos I managed to get online. Same rules regarding them looking like garbage unless you give them time to properly process still apply.

Part 1 — Opening Statements

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11 — Closing Statements

Hopefully these will feed many more comment wars.

All best, and keep an eye out for more actual commentary from me in the next few days now that the filming is done with!

I will admit it was my own scheming that put me in a less than stellar mood today. I was woefully reading posts on my punditry post, unable to stop myself, it’s a sickness really. When I was on my journey home who do I see across the street  from my house playing guitar and singing? Neil Bailey and Evan Price of course! Just a little reminder that we all need to take some time from the hectic campaigning, he said she said of it all and enjoy the beautiful Halifax weather. I hope all candidates took a well deserved couple of hours today and enjoyed the sun. Happy 1 day left of campaigning!

I liveblogged the rest of the presidential debate once Eric had to leave. I’ll admit, mine is a little less in depth… but alas, I am not Eric Snow.

And we continue…

Read more…

First of all Pundits in attendance: Janet Conrad, John Hillman, Zhindra Gillis and even a pundit of elections past: Mark Coffin

I will be honest it was the day after St. Patrick’s day so I found myself 15 minutes late and without the capacity to take notes. I caught the closing remarks of the people running for senate. Maggie “The Green Machine” Lovett spoke elequently and gracefully as usual. She projected both maturity and professionalism, things that are required for senate.  Carly “Smiles” Nicholson was very upbeat and told people to pick her. Ben “The Situation” Wedge I think reminded us he’s going to be a Sexton student and voters could tell this guy actually eats sleeps and breaths policy. Christian “The Bouncer”Browne made all the other candidates look really small in comparison and his voice was particularly loud(Or was that just me?) which showed us all he can hardly be ignored.

Then came the VP Education part of the debate and I went to get a sandwich. I could hear Evan Price talking about “experiencial learning” from the kiosk. I could  hear Rob LeForte showing off his experience and Karl Dempsey telling us what he could bring to the job.

From what I gather it was pretty much the same as the studley debate.

Both Henry Whitfield and Greg Debogorski showed up late. I am assuming Greg had class and Henry told the CRO(and me) he had a midterm.

I can’t remember if Hannah was before or after the VPI candidates but I will cover her debate now. She was asked a few questions by the CRO then the floor was opened up for questions. (sound of crickets) I won’t lie I actually had a question for Hannah but I really didn’t know what it would accomplish to ask her since a lot of Sexton Students were still in class and the main attendees of the debate were the die hards following the campaign. Maybe Hannah can answer it here: ” With all your experience in the last two years it has been no secret you were likely going to run for this position, why is it you seem to have learned every aspect of the VP Student Life’s portfolio with the exception of the fact that you seem to have had no interaction with the Sexton Entertainment Director or the Sexton Entertainment Committee  in order to learn about running events on Sexton Campus?”-Maybe I’m wrong and you’ve talked to people on Sexton. I hope you will soon come talk to me since I have a few things to discuss with you about Orientation, Techball and December 6th which are all included in the constitution as things you must do.  We could not have done any of those things without support from the VP Student Life so I hope you will get to know how things run on Sexton since it is a bit different from upper campus and there is a learning curve associated with it.

Ok, The VPI debate. Or as I like to call it “Let’s bash the tiger patrol to Sexton idea and DSUtube”. The VPI candidates played a little dirty with each other. They ripped on Kayla for her tiger patrol van to Sexton idea and she defended it. They ripped on Henry for DSU tube. A Kayla supporter wearing a Kayla Kurin t-shirt directed a question at Henry and then interrupted him as he spoke. Tim and Glenn were just as bad at doing the digging at the other two but came out of the match relatively unscathed. I do think these candidates are underestimating the value of a clean campaign. It may have been a good idea in a race that is as close as this to try to get the second choice votes from those supporting your opponents. Honestly right now I am pretty appalled at how that all went down.

By the time we got to the presidential debate the Electrical 4 students who had come to support their classmate Chris had left and there were very few Sexton Students around. Truthfully there is only about a half hour per day that more than one group of students is not in class. Also by this time the Mechanical 5 students were testing design projects and everyone was distracted by the hovercraft and the dog playing fetch with a robot. Sadly this is not a joke.

Debogorski talked about how students “down here” don’t know who their representatives are or anything about the union. I took personal offense to that, but instead of defending myself I am going to defend all the other representatives of the DSU on Sexton Campus.

Nick Allen is our Sexton Entertainment Director and everyone knows Nick runs the T-Room events and other events put on by the DSU on Sexton. If he is not talking up his events to everyone in person he is emailing all the students and telling them about it. Andy Ngae the DSU Sexton Campus Manager meets with people on a regular basis and most students actually know who he is. Trust me you can’t miss this guy he is intense and he is always working for the students. He is closer than ever to getting us an ATM machine on campus and he got athletics to put on fitness classes at the Sexton gym sort of like the ones offered on Studley.  Can you beleive that’s a new thing? Most classes offered at Sexton cost money so this was huge.  These are just his accomplishments relating to his job with the DSU. If I have to go on about what he has done for international and IE students I will have to start another post. You may not know Adam Pelissero, who is one of the Architecture presidents and represents Architecture students to the DSU but the Architecture students do. He has worked with the current VPI and with his council to do great things for the architecture students. Finally Stephanie Hagmann is the Sexton Engineering Rep on the DSU and the president of the Engineering Society. (Please note I am NOT the engineering rep) You would be hard pressed to find an engineer who doesn’t know who she is or how hard she works for engineering students. Mr. Debogorski, you’d be lucky to find one that wouldn’t defend her come hell or high water for the crap you say about her when you generalize the councilors as you do.  Oh dear this has become another angry Zhindra rant but I just felt I had to defend the people Debogorski put down.

And yeah, he’s running against two Sexton students who in their own right have done wonderful things for their respective Sexton communities. So the debate continued with Chris Salnier talking up his experience and his ideas for policy change and Neil Bailey talking about how his degree is directly related to what the job would entail and how he would focus on community involvement. Seriously….can they be co-presidents? Please can we keep them both? However this turns out folks, this won’t be the last you hear of either one.

So that’s the Sexton Debate wrap up. As always I welcome, you’re a bias nasty pundit comments with open arms