punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

These went out to candidates earlier, but Dal email is so incredibly painfully slow these days that I don’t think any of them have it.  So, here you go.  These are slightly modified to be briefer, so candidates should check the OFFICIAL rules sent via email.  The debate will start at 2pm and will finish at 4pm or when we run out of questions, whichever happens first.

This is a first for Dal, and I couldn’t find any one else whose done it, either.  Please bear with us as we sort things out.

Debate Rules, Guidelines, and Information

• The debate will be conducted through the chat forum at http://punditry.ca/features/online-debate  That page is open to candidates now, and will be open to the public about an hour before the debate begins so we can all come in and find our places, as it were.
• The chat will be “recorded”, and the transcript made available on punditry.ca
• During the debate, the discussion room will be locked down, with only the candidates, the questioner, and myself able to speak. Participants will send the message: “/raisehand” to indicate they would like to speak, and they will be called on in order.
• I (Mike Smit) will act as moderator.
• Candidates and participants will follow the rules, and I will use all technical means to ensure that happens. While we encourage healthy debate and questions from all participants, Participants will be kicked out of the discussion without hesitation if they are interfering with the debate.
• Each candidate WILL have limits placed on how much they can speak. This is to ensure fairness, but also to make sure things move along at reasonable speed. Word limits will be imposed; time limits exist implicitly: you have roughly as much time as it would take to type your word limit at 40 words per minute.
• A candidate can at any time send me a private message challenging the length of another candidate’s response.
• A candidate (or participant) can at any time send me a private message with any procedural questions or objections.  Abuse of the private messaging feature is not acceptable

• Order of debate

1. 1. Opening statements, 150 words
   2. 2 opening questions from moderator
   3. Questions from punditry.ca writers
   4. Questions from audience
   5. Closing Statements

• “Questions” may be in one of two forms:

1.  
   1.  Lightning Round Style (to take advantage of our unique platform):  Question is asked. Candidates respond simultaneously, firing off chat messages as much and as often as they want. They can address their opponents’ responses, or can keep talking. Regular rules of decorum are to be followed. Questioner may also participate. After conversation dies down, or after enough time has elapse, Moderator will call for “final thoughts”, and discussion ends after final messages from candidates.
   2. Forum Style (tried, tested, true): One candidate is invited to speak at a time, like the forums of the past week, and past DSU millenia.  75 word responses (order in which candidates answer will cycle), 35 word rebuttals.  Questioner can follow up, treated as new question.  All questions will be asked to all candidates.

• The questioner will decide which form they would like the candidates to answer using. I will use one of each style in my two opening questions to get people used to it.

• Passion is wonderful.  Douchebaggery isn’t.  Please show respect to the candidates and questioners.  Note that profanity will be censored out: it will appear to you like what you typed, but to everyone else it will be censored.

• This is not a DSU Elections sponsored OR endorsed event.  However, you are also not immune from their rules.

Oops, I wrote this, saved it, then went to bed… apparently forgetting to publish it.  My bad.  Here you go, apologies for the delay.

After 5 days on the campaign trail, here’s what’s happening.

• It’s a slow day, so to fill up some space I’ll share with you Mike Smit Elections Central.  From left to right: 1. new-ish IBM thinkpad nicely outfitted.  The built-in screen is used primarily for windows that monitor & configure the punditry.ca server.  This laptop is hooked up to the 22″ widescreen Dell monitor to the right.  You can see it’s a lot brighter than the other three screens, it is my primary workspace.  Right now I have 37 browser tabs open, 101 scratch text files (also tabbed), 6 excel spreadsheets, Photoshop, email, irc, and 2 alternate browsers used for testing.  The next screen is a 19″ Dell monitor showing a browser window with tabs to all candidate homepages & facebooks, set to refresh once every 4 hours.   The page displayed is the blog aggregation page, refreshing every 30 minutes.  It is powered by the laptop on the right, my old IBM thinkpad.  Its screen is used only for twitter aggregation, 30 minute refresh.  These latter two screens are also used for research, or as window space: when I write about candidate platforms, for example, I put the platforms up on a screen so I can read as I work.  I use two logitech wireless keyboard & mouse combos as input devices.  Obviously when I’m away from my desk at my REAL job the first laptop goes with me.  This picture is the perfect blend of tech geekiness and elections geekiness.

Mike's election headquarters

Previously, on the DSU Elections:

• Advance polling: online voting will be available tomorrow (Friday the 13th) from noon until midnight.  No special permission is required to vote; all 15,000 voters have access.  Of course, you won’t be able to return and edit your ballot next week when the polls open again, but your vote will count like anyone else’s.  This is a first for Dal, and is being done because medical students are off next week.

• My personal standpoint is: I beg of you, don’t vote right away unless you absolutely must.  Wait until next week.  There are still 3 full days of campaigning left, including two presidential debates.

• Hey candidates, how does it make you feel that by this time tomorrow some percentage of the votes will be collected, yet the results will be completely unavailable to anyone for 6 days?  Typically I find candidates have trouble with the 2 hours between polls closing on Thursday and the results announcement, so watching them go the 140 hours should be amusing.

• By the way, tomorrow’s (Friday’s) presidential debate in the Grawood has been moved to Monday (2pm in the Grawood, according to an update on Snow’s website).  The online debate is still good-to-go for Sunday at 2pm.

• The Studley debate was covered in-depth here, including observations from Jen Bond and an incredibly detailed and well-written summary from Lisa.

• That said, regarding one of Lisa’s points re: policies and procedures versus consulting students… I think its a bit bizarre to pick one or the other, my suspicion is that Snow meant there was no reason you couldn’t do both (though obviously I have no idea what he actually said).  Regardless, of the two campaign promises, I’d take policies and procedures.  In 9 years of election campaigns, I’ve heard the “more student consultation” promise from about 153 candidates (i.e. all of them), and it carries no weight with me.  It’s a default, obvious promise.  Knowledge of policies and procedures is a measurable trait that is actually useful.  I’ve never heard a candidate promise LESS student consultation, while I have seen many demonstrate very little existing knowledge of policy.  Granted, policy isn’t a hot’n'sexy topic for most people, but I like it.

• Good job to Mark Hobbs for his defense of a momentarily speechless opponent against utterly bizarre and provably false accusations.

• Speaking of crazy, John Hillman posted some videos of the AGM.  I recommend Video #4 in particular, the crazy butterfly guy was everything they said he was and more.

• Today’s Gazette is the election edition; I hear basketball made the cover but the elections goodness is inside.  I am looking forward to the coverage; as you know, the Gazette is a bastion of accuracy and fact-checking, unlike punditry.ca where the lies and filth drip from the walls.  For now you need to be on campus to drink from its papery goodness, but when the online edition goes up some time in April I’ll be sure to let you know.

• If you missed the Election Candidate Video Awards or Mark’s discussion of DSU AGMs, go read.

• Student Appreciation Night is Friday night.  I’ll be sure to save column inches for that.

• Not much action on the candidate blogs.  Will Horne conceded my point from last night, and then I stopped reading. I kid, of course: I read with interest his thoughts on NSPIRG.  Re: DSU vs NSPIRG, fyi there have been relationship problems there for as long as I’ve been on campus.  Every few years things come to a head.  Obviously I agree this is not the way it should be, but just want to make you aware this is not a recent development.

• Re: “As a student I’ll say this: what I want is peace on the issue…and a glaringly obvious opt-out period.”  I don’t want to turn this into a page discussing the usefulness of NSPIRG, but I see inherent conflict in that statement.  NSPIRG has vigorously opposed the opt-out from day one.  In my day at least, every few years they would try to get out of it, typically by just not offering an opt-out period and seeing if anyone would notice.  If you pursue an improved opt-out process, you will not get peace.  
  Actually, I once tried to opt out.  I was doing an internship out of town, and emailed to ask how to do it.  They said I couldn’t.  Not being accustomed to taking “no” for an answer, I persisted.  They emailed me some heinous attachment that was very difficult to open and told me to fill out the form.  I did.  They said they wouldn’t send me money but I could come in person once I was back in town to pick it up.  I did.  They told me they couldn’t give me my money right then, but that I should come back.  I did.  The person who could help me wasn’t there.  I never did get my $2.  Remind me to send them an invoice.

• Per his blog, Eric Snow added items specific to graduate students to his platform.  This is remarkable on two levels: a) a candidate listened to students and updated their platform? Surprisingly, this is rare.  b) a candidate made grad-related issues part of their platform?  Normally that distinction is reserved for the graduate senator.  As a grad student I should be doing more to call candidates out on this issue, and I’m about to start.  If any other candidates have positions or thoughts on grad students, I’d recommend following Eric’s lead and sharing them, soon.

• 139 new comments, and more page views than yesterday (6500 from 900 unique visitors).

Here we go. This is a long one, folks. You might want to get some popcorn and settle in. Rather than save the audience questions for the end of the post, I’ve just lumped them in under each position for ease of reading. I did have to leave a few minutes early, so I missed the last couple of audience questions. Also, I apologize in advance for any sentence fragments, and I have put some of my comments in italics to ensure they are not mixed up with candidate comments.

President

For openers, Snow thanked everyone for attending, mentioned his experience with Senate and HSA, 24-hour study space and food service, and his website. Zimmerman thanked the organizers of the debate, referred to the SUB as her first home rather than her second, and mentioned her experience on Council, BoG, and student societies.

For the first question, candidates were asked to describe their leadership qualifications. Zimmerman said that she has had lots of involvement on all campuses. She feels BoG is the most important role of the President outside the SUB and has experience as current BoG representative. She also feels it is important not to talk only to students, but also to societies, deans, etc. Snow told us he knows the rules and procedures (even wrote some). He knows President is not an all-powerful role and believes there should be consultation beyond Council (athletics, residences, etc.) He wants to get students involved as much as possible and believes the more students that are involved, the better. Zimmerman said she believes in talking to students more than in policies and procedures. She believes in talking to people in all outlets in campus. Snow agrees with consulting with students but said one must understand the procedures for doing this (i.e. know who to go to on various issues).

I must say I’m a little confused by Snow on this one. I understand that one might need to know how certain networks are structured to find the most efficient way of addressing and issue, but in terms of direct consultation with students, I don’t believe we need to refer to any policy.

Question two was about media attention. Is it good or bad? How will they present the image of the DSU? Snow said he’s no stranger to media and isn’t shy to speak to crowds. He sees media attention as a double-edged sword (Everyone wants a piece of you, eh Eric?) He is looking into getting official media training. Here, Zimmerman made her first of a couple references to the Executive Team. She would consult with other members of the Executive because they should be working together on representations to media. She believes media should be used to educate and give background on issues facing the Union, and that the Exec should resume weekly interviews with CKDU that started and stopped at some point this year. She would endeavour to have student consultation before speaking to media. While Snow agrees on consultation with Exec, he pointed out that the President takes responsibility, as official spokesperson, for what is said. Zimmerman also raised the fact that the DSU has a General Manager and Communications Coordinator whose strategic capabilities can help executive who are new to interacting with media.

Question three was about the strategic plan/Imagine DSU. Candidates were asked what was the most pressing issue students raised this year during Imagine. They were also asked about the future of Imagine. Zimmerman mentioned the campus master plan, 24-hour study space, and local food service. She feels it was a good idea to have a full-on campaign this year rather than a single event, but feels the process has lost momentum. She thinks the process should start at the beginning of the year, rather than waiting until the Winter term to have consultations. Snow agreed that students raised 24-hour study space and the master plan, but feels local food on campus was the biggest issue. He wants more comment cards near services in order to find out how to pursue student interests.

In closing, Zimmerman plugged her website and said her name twice in addition to her URL. Snow plugged his Website and five campaign points, saying his name once in addition to his URL. Someone’s taking my advice.

Check out the rest of the recap after the jump.

Read more…

Lisa, John and I were all at the Studley debate today.  I think Lisa’s going to do a full recap, so I’ll just stick with a few of my “friendly observations.”

President:

Only Snow and Zimmerman showed up.  Debo made a cameo during the VP Education portion of the programme, but had left by the general question period.  I’m sure he had a class.  I’m also sure half of the other candidates also had a class…but I digress.

Snow isn’t confident at the podium, Zimmerman looks relaxed and at ease.   Zimmerman doesn’t have awesome voice modulation, Snow is an engaging speaker.  They both need to work on their eye contact.

They both answered questions well, but let’s face it, this is for all the marbles, they aren’t going to screw it up.

VP Internal:

Can we just elect them both?  They are so committed and really know their stuff.  I am concerned/confused about Mark’s plan to have a DSU website that can be updated by anyone.   There’s info on his website about how we could do this. I have no question that it *can* be done, I’m just not sure we *should* do it.   Mark did, however, show that he was a class act when he stood up for his opponent in the face of attack.  Bravo.

VP Education:

I’m surprised how much Burns knows for being a newbie to the scene (he’s so young looking I feel like if I got close enough, he’d smell like womb).  LeForte demonstrated that he knows both a whole lot about the intricacies of PSE funding and also how to tie a double windsor knot.  I approve of both.   Once again CASA is a hot topic.  Burns says we should drop down to associate member status.  He hasn’t given me a good reason why.

VP Student Life:

Kris is running unopposed.  Like John, I say if he wants the job again, we should give it to him.

Senate:

Best.  Race.  Ever.  Between Simms’s quirkiness, Evans’s adorable/genuineness and Blake’s general smile inducingness, this is by far the best group to listen to.   Big points to everyone for reading up on the Academic and External committee and coming to class knowing the answer. Extra points to Simms for picking up the microphone so that he didn’t have to slouch at the podium (Snow, Burns et al. take note!)

Board of Governors:

Why aren’t these people running the country?  They’re all so well-qualified and eloquent it makes me a little queasy.  Give me something to nitpick about, people!

Harris has commented many a time about how he was the President of “another institution” and he used to live in Antigonish…people can put two and two together Harris, why not just tell them that magical institution was St. FX?  Also, would it kill FPW or Horne to smile?  I know BoG is all serious and stuff, but come on.  Look at that, I totally found stuff to talk about.  Crisis averted.

There were general questions from the audience (which was quite full, actually.  Nice one) but I only half paid attention.  Bad pundit.  Lisa took better notes than I did.

So it seems like I might have been the only pundit at the Sexton debate.  I guess that means that it’s up to me to deliver the recap that everyone is clamouring for, so here goes:

The Presidential Showdown:

Eric: Blah Blah Blah, I’m a know-it-all and I’wear a tie everywhere.

Shannon: Yadda Yadda Yadda, I’ve been a councillor since the Reagan administration, I love Sexton.

Greg: I’m not here because I have a class or something, and besides, I don’t want to waste my time talking to Nazis. 

VP Internal:

Craig: Laid back charm, joke, joke, I’m a sexy beast so vote for me.

Mark Hobbs: I have lots of ideas but I’m always getting cut off. That said, what I really want to emphasize is….(Time up)

VP “Eduction”:

Rob: Let me go first!  (See the description of Eric Snow.)

Edgar: I’m new…and I have ideas…and I’m fresh…and I have an approach.

Rob: Teacher, teacher, can I answer his question too?!

VP Student Life:

Kris: I’m the only person running…and I actually want to take this shit job again, so if you don’t vote for me it’s your own  funeral douchebags.

Senate:

Glenn: I’m  surprizingly likeable for a PIRGer, and it’s a damn good thing because you are all stuck with me.

Meredith: I know answers to questions today!

Shane: I know my age AND my website address!

BOG:

They all said really smart stuff. Vikram talked as fast as Danny Boyle in the last five minutes of the AGM, and Fred looked like a chastised little boy every time he answered a question.

Referendum Question:

Danny Boyle hypnotized us all with his exotic accent. I’ll vote for anything he’s running for or supporting!

Q&A:

A bunch of jackass Sexton students asked questions, seemingly believing that anyone actually cares about their distinct society.

In conclusion both Jen and Lisa were at the Studley debates, thank god.

• Today the excitement of the election took a back seat to the DSU Annual General Meeting. It was covered in depth here, before and during. Jen promoted it, then live-blogged it, Lisa twittered it, readers commented on it, and punditry.ca broke.  I won’t do a recap, but I highly recommend Jen’s liveblogging and the ensuing 97 comments.

• Kudos to Mat Brechtel, chair of Council and therefore chair of the AGM.  Managing debate and trying to maintain some amount of decorum in a highly-charged atmosphere is no small task.  Maybe for April 1 they can get you one of those classroom performance systems for vote recording.  I read on Lisa’s twitter that the “chair enters Council Chambers to thunderous applause from Council”, and that applause was well deserved.

• Apparently there was vandalism in the SUB during/after the AGM, along the lines of the DSU being fascist (unconfirmed reports).  The expectation of an organization that it take instruction from people who hate it and everything about it is something I suspect is unique to student associations.  Most people who hate a given organization just want said organization to leave them alone.  (e.g., people who hate the federal government want to be left alone to collect guns and hate black people).

• William Horne made an interesting point on his blog, saying “could be just the particular turnout last night, but it seems to me that Dalhousie students are far more polarized that I had previously realized”.  I reflected on that, then decided I disagreed.  Polarized in the context of politics means opposite ends of the political spectrum.  I’ll grant that the anti-war, anti-corporation, etc. viewpoints are near enough the polar end of the traditional “left-wing” side of politics.  But the right-wing-as-used-today view was not well-represented in that room.  If that room had elected a federal government, the Liberal party would look right-wing.  And I don’t know what Student Appreciation Nights are like these days, but even a small fraction of the ones in my day would convince you moral/family values aren’t at the top of the agenda of campus student leaders.  If anything, the polarity of DSU policies has shifted to the left in recent years.  Take a look at campaign material from 2005 and tell me how many times you use the word “sustainbility”. 
    The other use of polarized is to take opposite sides on an issue: pro-peanuts, anti-peanuts.  Taking for example an anti-war motion, those who opposed it at the AGM aren’t saying “war is awesome”.  They are saying, for example, “war sucks, but it’s pretty far out of our mandate as a student union”.
    I also think it probably WAS the particular turnout; the “people who came to the AGM in support of a particular agenda (be it *for* or *against* the motions)” demographic are a terrible sample set of Dal students.  It’s hard to be polarized when you don’t care.
    Though I disagreed in the end, Horne asked a good question that inspired thought, and I appreciate that.

• One interesting indirect outcome of the AGM is a petition aimed at taking away NSPIRG’s funding, promoted on a new website, www.stopnspirg.org.

• Debogorski was levied two fines tonight, for asserting/implying that people were Nazis.  One was out loud during the AGM, and the other was on punditry.ca after he was removed from the SUB by the police.

• Ok, that’s it for the AGM.

• You might have missed it in the AGM excitement, but candidate posters are available online, though the conversation seems to have boiled down to AmIHotOrNot.

• Sexton debate coverage is not up to Lisa’s level, but I do want to follow-up on last night’s wrap-up.  I congratulated Simms on finding answers to a question he hadn’t been able to answer at the Carleton debate, and said I suspected Evans & Blake could do the same.  The results are in: Evans nailed it, Simms was shaky but got the gist of it, and Glenn Blake didn’t know much more but still wanted to learn.  Two out of three ain’t bad, and Blake will have another shot at demonstrating this willingness to learn at the Thursday debate  (SUB, noon).

• I’ve tried to keep this locked up, but the rage is just too much.  I have a weakness: I cannot read text without spotting most spelling and grammar errors.  This makes my thrice-daily rounds of candidate websites extraordinarily painful.  Forget knowing how to spell, and a typo is a typo, but when did we stop teaching people how to use a spell checker?  If you can’t spell and you don’t have a web browser that spell checks as you type, get one.  Surely you all have noticed this as well:

Edgar Burns: “I Belive they would be well attended … If u have any others then please feel free to email…”
Rob LeForte escapes my wrath, but he also has been writing less than the other candidates.

Shannon Zimmerman: “This is more then just better communication” is fairly prominent, but not bad.
Eric Snow: “encouraged to see so many Sexton students ask very thought prevoking question”, but generally not bad or at least quickly corrected.
Gregory Debogorski: … I don’t need to present evidence here, right?

Hobbs: “maitenance”, “simple terms that is”, “debate on the much contentious issue”, “Studly debate”
Craig Jennex escapes my wrath, plus gets bonus points for spelling “camaraderie” correctly.

• Most candidates have Facebook groups to which they’ve invited all and sundry.  I wrote a little script, as I am prone to do, and it tells me how many members are in each group:

• punditry.ca served an astounding 6,000 pages to 550 unique visitors today.

• Yesterday I was impressed with 53 comments; the total as of midnight-ish was 240 comments.