punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

First thing’s first: Congratulations to Shannon, Mark, Rob, Kris, Janet, Adam, Meredith, Shane, and Glenn, and thanks to all of the candidates for putting so much time and effort into your campaigns and keeping me entertained.

This being my seventh and final DSU Election as a student, I thought I’d compile a personal highlight reel of the past eleven days. Two photos from last night’s results party festivities serve as bookends to this entry.

The Ghost of Executives Past makes an appearance at the 2009 DSU Election Results Party at the Grawood

- Hobbes sticking up for Jennex at the Studley debate: I didn’t really know Mark before this campaign, but he proved himself to be a stand-up guy when he could have taken advantage of his opponent being attacked. Both Mark and Craig ran strong campaigns, which was reflected in the 35-vote difference in the final results.

- I’m still not entirely comfortable with the way NSPIRG became a campaign issue, and, in particular, the way the debate was focused on the presidential race, but it deserves mention given the amount of attention it is getting. I’ll be writing more about this matter in the coming days as The AGM: Part II approaches.

- Janet Conrad’s candidate profile photo: I’ve watched enough America’s Next Top Model to identify when someone knows how to use their angles and find the light source.

- My buddy Eric Snow went from rule-maker to rule-breaker by racking up some post-campaigning fines.

- The Evolution of Debo: Is it just me, or is Greg getting a bit better with each election? Sure, he still has inappropriate outbursts and does silly things like drink five large teas during a debate, but every once in a while when you get past his demeanour, you find a reasonable idea. This seems to be happening more frequently these days. I must say, even though he would lump me in with the DSU “in crowd”, I appreciate what Greg is trying to do and that he has a genuine interest in getting people engaged with what goes on at the DSU. I might not agree with all of his ideas, but I’ve got to admit, campaigns would be a lot less interesting if he weren’t running.

- Shannon’s closing remarks at the Presidential debate are a perfect example of why I supported her campaign. Without any prepared notes, she spoke of the significance of this campaign for her, and of her love for the DSU and for Dalhousie. It was obviously genuine and indicative of why she’s well-suited to be President. Her passion for the DSU is contagious, which is something we need from our Executive if we have any hope of sparking interest in what we do. I anxiously await the DVD release of the debate so I can provide
a transcript of her remarks.

Some post-results dancing at Reflections with these fools (photo: John Hurley)

 I created word clouds for the VPI candidates (what does this mean?).  This time I removed “Dalhousie Student Union”, “DSU”, and “student(s)”, as all those terms were dominant for these candidates.  You can form your own conclusions; mine are below.

• The job description, per dsuelections.ca:  ”The Vice President (Internal) is the Chief Communications Officer of the Union.”  You’d expect communication to show up, and it does for both but in a much bigger way for Jennex.

• The other big role of the VP Internal is the management of societies, and that obviously shows up big for both of them.

• Contrary to what SustainDal said, looks like sustainability shows up more for Jennex, relatively speaking.

• The term website shows up for Hobbs, but not Jennex.  This confused me, as both of them have talked a lot about the DSU’s online presence.  Here is an area where word clouds can lead you astray.  Check out their statements on websites:

Jennex: “A more accessible and accurate WEBSITE that is able to provide a hub for any and all student activities, on campus and off. For a student union that represents over 15,000 students spread over four campuses, everything centers on having a functional website.”

Hobbs: “The website must be improved. This is a common feeling, but also feel as if it must be updated promptly and more regularly. This is what makes websites attractive, and is the root behind the sensation of blogs. We also must make our website accessible.” … “consistent branding including the website” … ”I will add a more effective, nice and visible website to the mix” …

• They make similar statements on the actual website; Hobbs just repeats it more.  (I do like how Hobbs wants to integrate with my.dal, something I bitched about when reviewing presidential candidates).

• Looks like Jennex says the name of his position a lot, VP Internal shows up frequently.  That’s probably not necessary.

• Accessibility hasn’t been a big deal in DSU elections since the Accessibility Office got an election thrown out because there was no way for the visually imparied to vote.  That said, the VPI chairs the student accessibility fund, so its nice to see accessible show up in Jennex’s cloud.

• The other words that came up a lot:
  • Hobbs: ensure, make, need are the words of someone who has identified problems and wants to fix them.  food shows up; this bizzarely IS part of his platform though not his portfolio.  like shows up, in this case used to give frequent examples.  work is interesting, read on for why.  
  • Jennex: look, forward are two frequent words, and they are invariably used together.  That’s a sense of someone excited for the job, as opposed to Hobbs’ work.  Perhaps this is because Hobbs is currently employed by the VPI and sees more of the “work” side of the position?  members: societies don’t exist without them.  

Busy day, compared to every other campaign Sunday I’ve ever seen.  8 posts on punditry.ca today, not counting this one, so remember to scroll down and read if you haven’t yet…

• Tomorrow is the last day of campaigning; elections materials come down at 8pm.  Get your fill of candidate websites now, there will be a quiz at the end of the ballot.  
  

  Rob LeForte's kittens endorse his candidacy.

• Today was a day of endorsements.  SustainDal endorsed Snow, Hobbs, LeForte, Horne, and Perron-Welch; the Dalhousie-Kings Conservatives apparently endorsed Snow and Hobbs; and Lisa endorsed Zimmerman.  (Also LeForte’s kittens endorsed him.)

• A few surprises there – I would have thought Janet Conrad was a shoo-in for a SustainDal endorsement given her DSUSO credentials, but I guess not.  I had a chuckle at her “it’s not true until it’s on the internet” comment (I paraphrased).  I understand the necessity of examining only those thing candidates put into writing, though I agree it is unfortunate.  DKC stopped after Snow and Hobbs; were the rest of the candidates simply unacceptable?  It’s not like Snow and Hobbs are chugging the Conservative kool-aid.  If it’s about NSPIRG, why didn’t Rai get the nod as well?

• I suspect we will see more endorsements – the JSA usually issues a set, and sometimes A-level societies do as well.  Obviously if you hear of any, let us know.

• Zimmerman joined Snow in calling for an NSPIRG referendum, but it seems she put a bit of distance between her position and his other points.  This news broke during the punditry.ca debate and was posted to her blog.

• punditry.ca hosted the first ever DSU online debate.  I think it went well; though the medium is far from perfect, it has some advantages including the availability of a full transcript.  Thanks to the candidates for adapting well to the software used.  Debogorski couldn’t make it, but I posted his answers to some of the questions.

• Speaking personally, running the debate was a challenge: the technical set up took a while but I did it at my own pace.  For the 2 hours of the debate itself, in addition to moderating the discussion I was carrying on up to 10-15 conversations with people who wanted to ask questions and killing off unruly users (no calling the cops in this house, I /kill first and ask questions later).

• I had an amusing conversation earlier.  Someone sent me a note saying that SustainDal had issued endorsements.  This was news, so I fired up the old web browser to verify the story and post it to punditry.ca.  ”Where did you hear this news?” I asked.  ”… on your site,” came the response.  Heh.  Thanks Mark Coffin for staying on top of these things.

• The Gazette has added two web-only articles, one on the Studley forum and the other on the AGM.

• Glenn Blake promised in a forum that as Senator, he’ll keep us up to date with a blog about the Dal Senate.  That blog has now been created, and he promises to update following the election.

• Janet Conrad has updated her blog and Facebook group with more details about her run at BoG.

• The Facebook group explaining Eric Snow’s position on NSPIRG is seeing some actual conversation, but is hard to find if you don’t know where it is.

• Other candidates with website updates include Horne, Snow, Jennex.

• On the lighter side, the comparison of candidate photos to PM photos was good for a laugh.

• Say what you want about STOP NSPIRG, they’ve done a great job at making their issue a central issue of this election.  Their website includes the statements from the two presidential candidates as well as an amusing list of other things you can do with $4.

• On the other side of the debate, NSPIRG invites you to join them on March 3rd to discuss the corporatization of campus, and to organize efforts to combat this.

• 5000 page views from 700 unique visitors.

SustainDal has released it’s endorsements for this year’s executive. I’ve quoted the meat of the document sent to their mailing list this afternoon, but the highlights are: 

President: Eric Snow

VP Internal: Mark Hobbs

VP Education: Rob LeForte

Board of Governors: Will Horne & Fred Perron-Welch

It is unfortunate that candidates were only ranked on written commitments in their platform, and not the commitments they made during conversations or debates. Actually, its more unfortunate that they haven’t included all of the information they’ve spoken on in their platforms, as I have a feeling the results for some positions would be different. 

While I used to be involved with SustainDal before joining the DSU exec team, I was not involved in the creation of this document. I  can also say that if environmental sustainability was my top voting issue in this election, I would make a few changes to this list. I’ll leave it at that. 

From SustainDal: 

Have you been wondering which candidates to vote for in the DSU election if you’re concerned about environmental sustainability on campus? Well never fear, SustainDal brings you the first ever DSU Electoral Candidate’s Sustainability Report Card! You’ll find the condensed info first, then out methods, then our reasoning, then the exact wording of each candidate’s sustainability platform from their websites.

In short, here’s who you should vote for if environmental sustainability is your key issue

President: Eric Snow

VP (Internal): Mark Hobbs

VP (Education): Rob Leforte

Board of Governors (2 positions): Will Horne and Fred Perron-Welch

Here’s what you need to know about our choices:

·         Ranking is based ONLY on information collected from each candidate’s platform on their website or Facebook group on Sunday March 15th.  This was the only way we could objectively collect information about candidates. We also feel that if sustainability is truly a priority for the candidate, they will mention it in their platform.

·         Comments about sustainability made in conversations, debates or on blog posts that were not part of the official platform were not included. Several candidates expressed their desire to address sustainability issues either in conversations or at the three debates. However we have chosen to compare platform content alone as it is the only way to impartially rank the candidates.

·         This report card is for environmental sustainability alone and does not rank any other topic that may be important to you when choosing a candidate.

·         For one of the VP (Student Life) portfolio there is only one candidate and for the Senate portfolio there are as many candidates as there are positions, and since these candidates will all win regardless of their sustainability platform, we have not ranked them.

·         The information from platforms were compiled, the names of the candidates were removed and an impartial but knowledgeable SustainDal executive ranked the platform points according the extent to which candidates addressed specific issues that are important to the campus sustainability movement or addressed sustainability in some way.

·         We encourage you to use the last day of campaigning (Monday March 16^th until 8pm) to educate yourself about each candidate’s entire platform. Go to www.dsuelections.ca for info on all candidates or go to their personal websites (listed in the Appendix) .

 

 

Here’s our Reasoning

President: This was a VERY close race between Eric Snow and Shannon Zimmerman, both have really great ideas and Eric only won by a small margin. We chose Eric because his sustainability platform includes specific actions he will take, whereas Shannon’s platform suggests more general improvements that need to be made at the administrative level. Both are great, you’ll have to look at non-sustainability-related platform points to make you decision on this one. Greg Debogorski has a single point about making food healthier and cheaper which is great but is only one item on the long list of eco issues plaguing the SUB and the DSU.

VP (Internal): We chose Mark Hobbs because he addresses several very relevant SUB-sustainability issues from food waste reductions, to more vegetarian and vegan options to improving the structure of the DSU sustainability office. We love Craig’s idea for a society sustainability handbook and his practical approach to his portfolio (aka: that he is limited in his ability to set the eco agenda), but we want the VPI to be a strong advocate for a more sustainable SUB and DSU.

VP (Education): We chose Rob Leforte because he wants to pass potential DSU policies through a sustainability review to asses their environmental impact. This could significantly reduce the foot print of the DSU. He also wants to get the late night bus going which will (hopefully) decrease the number of cab rides, or driving from the bar. We agree with Edgar Burns that students need access to better public transit options, but again, we need more than that!

Board of Governors: We chose Will Horne because he is passionate about representing student sustainability concerns at the highest level in the University.  Will is definitely leading the pack on sustainability issues. We chose Fred Perron-Welch because he was the only other candidate to mention sustainability in their platform.

 

Obviously the big news today was Eric Snow calling for NSPIRG reform. Agree with him or not, you have to admit its ballsy. NSPIRG is one of the hot-button issues in the SUB these days, and I rarely see an elections candidate stand up and take a firm stand on a hot issue. Candidates “take stands” on issues all the time, but normally its something entirely uncontroversial: “We need better food on campus.” “Tuition should be lower”. I would imagine the vocal group of people who love NSPIRG will rush to campaign against Eric, and that those groups demanding change from NSPIRG will rush to campaign for him. The possibility exists this election will be determined by how effectively each side mobilizes support.  Debogorski has come out strongly in favor of NSPIRG, while Zimmerman is content to sit this one out.

Mark Coffin offered excellent coverage of this story.  If you aren’t sure what NSPIRG is, Ann Beringer offers an excellent, well-researched story as absent of bias as I think it is possible to be. (If you didn’t click the Read More link the first time you saw it, now is the time).  

The last time I remember a candidate taking a stand that a vocal group of individuals would disagree with was during the student spaces referendum a few years back. (Interestingly, Snow was one of the people who took a stand on that issue, too).

Vikram Rai has publicly stated his support for Eric’s position. At this time it is unknown if other candidates will agree.

Zimmerman issued a correction to her platform, promising to demand amendments to existing policy re: school cancellation.

Today was the residence hockey game, Howe won over Risley, 5-3.  Many candidates were in attendance, and it sounds like everyone had a great time.

Online debate is tomorrow, and I described how that’s going to work.  (actually, in 6 hours)

I discussed Student Appreciation Night last night, and as people woke up (around noonish) and took aspirin (around 30), news came in.  The consensus is that Kris Osmond did an awesome job.  He didn’t say a word about the election, but he also didn’t need to: successful events speak for themselves.  (Lisa weighed in on the night as well).

Every candidate was given a ticket to attend and the chance to volunteer.  Snow, Zimmerman, Burns, LeForte, Jennex, Evans, and of course Osmond volunteered (well done); Harris, Conrad, Simms, Rai, Horne attended (good plan);  Debo, Hobbs, Blake, and FPW were apparently not able to attend.  The latter candidates missed out on a great chance to get some face time with voters.  Hobbs in particular surprises me as typically Union commissioners attend, candidates or not.  Sources tell me Jennex in particular put in a long night spinning the roulette wheel and Burns gave up a work shift to volunteer.  Also of note, CRO Amyotte and some of her committee members put in a long day helping Osmond out.

Will Horne talked a little bit about his (and Meredith Evans’) experience with the music society.  The story is not an unfamiliar one: a somewhat sleepy society is shaken up and achieves a lot in a short period of time.  I’ve seen it happen a few times – Marine Bio, DalOUT come to mind – and I was part of it with the Computer Science Society (two Society of the Year awards in three years, bitches).  The success is typically due entirely to the hard work and long hours of a few people who Get Shit Done (heh, just noticed he used the same words, but I stand by them).  These people are often never happier than when working within their own society, but every now and then a few decide to join the DSU, and typically my advice is: let them.  I’m not saying it has to be THIS position, but find a way to let them contribute.

 Other candidates with updates include Rai,  Jennex, Hobbs, and Debogorski posted some more of his platform.

Slow day on punditry.ca – about 3,000 page views, though still a lot of comments.

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).