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.  

I was in the SUB for a few hours on Friday afternoon for a Board of Operations meeting. Both the Grawood and the lobby were very quiet, even for a Friday, but I did see Snow, Burns, LeForte, Jennex (all of whom appeared to be either just passing through or on their way to meet with someone) and Rai (who was also there for the Board meeting).

LeForte and Jennex raised an interesting point in speaking briefly to Dan Boyle and I. Both candidates were given permission to speak in classes only to have the professor subsequently retract that permission. Apparently, two Medicine profs who did this to Jennex said it was because they felt it would not be fair if only one candidate in the race spoke to the class. It is up to an individual professor whether they will allow a guest to speak to their class, and responses to campaign requests range from a high level of enthusiasm (professors who will speak to their classes, at length, about the importance of student government) to a strict “no campaigning in my classroom” policy. This is the first I’ve heard of the “only if your opponents speak, too” excuse for refusing permission. (If other past or present candidates have had this experience, please share). I’m not sure what sort of communications there are between the DSU/Elections Committee and the faculties and departments surrounding DSU elections, but perhaps, in future, such communications could explain to professors that it is a candidate’s prerogative to arrange class talks and professors need not feel obligated to allow equal time to each candidate in a given race. As I see it, class talks are as much a way to advertise the elections as to promote candidates.

Not much to report from this year’s Vegas-themed Student Appreciation Night. DalOUT won “Cultural Society of the Year” and I received the Lilli Ju Lifetime Achievement Award, so really the night was all about me. ME ME ME! Actually, everyone was surprisingly well-behaved and sober (a common symptom of election fever). Some of the candidates were helping to run the casino games. Snow and Zimmerman, who both looked very nice in their semi-formal attire, were distributing chips from the Infodesk. LeForte, Jennex, and Evans were running games, I assume in their capacity as DSU employees, rather than as candidates. EDIT: All candidates were invited to volunteer with the casino games, but were not actively campaigning. Burns also helped out, which I did not know because he arrived just before I went upstairs. The evening featured a magician/illusionist who Larkin suggested we ask to chair Part II of the AGM – “Your challenge to the Chair succeeds if this is your card!” – just to make things that much more fun/ridiculous. Brechtel would probably appreciate being relieved of his duties this one time.

Speaking of the AGM, rumours have been circulating that both Larkin and Golding were jumped on separate occassions by angry NSPIRG-ers. Neither of these rumours has any truth to them unless you count Golding being at the McInnes Room entrance when the “NSPIRG employee” rushed the door (as Jen Bond recounted) or Larkin being approached by a gaggle of people as she left the AGM.

One of the candidates reported to Golding that he heard the guy we have come to refer to as “the math major” (the guy who challenged the percentage calculation of the final ballot vote at the AGM) and people sitting near him say that to get back at Golding (who called for the ballot vote) they should stage a gay pride parade in front of Golding’s house. First off, how does having something as fun as a gay pride parade convey to someone that you’re mad at them? Second, do people think Golding is a homophobe or something? Speaking in my capacity as the LGBTQ rep on Council, nothing could be further from the truth. Plus, I can’t imagine a homophobe who could pull off Golding’s fetching black & pink argyle sweater vest.

Today many candidates will likely be courting the residence vote at the annual Residence Charity Face-Off between the Bighorns and the Trojans.

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…

I took a few minutes to watch all the candidate videos. Based on the contents, I came up with some “awards” for the 2009 Election Candidate Video Awards (ECVAs) in recognition of the good, the bad, and the baritone.

Best Shot Composition: Shannon Zimmerman & Vikram Rai

Though the backlight does take away a bit, I like the use of the clock tower. However, despite using the same location, Zimmerman and Rai must have shot their videos at very different times, because…

Worst Background Noise: Vikram Rai

I thought about giving this one to Blake with the running toilet in the echoey bathroom, but the voices in Rai’s video are so loud I was trying to eavesdrop on the conversation while watching.

Best Use of Media: Craig Jennex

Brilliant integration of the slide show allows Jennex to refer voters to his website, Twitter, Facebook group, and e-mail address without having to say all the awkward addresses.

Most Humorous: Shane Simms

While we all take student politics seriously, it’s no fun when we take it too seriously, so people get points for making me chuckle. All it takes is a pipe and a well-placed hand on the hip.

Worst Location: Glenn Blake

Really, Glenn Blake? You’re on the toilet? Really?! You didn’t even try to pull some sort of “Don’t let the University flush student voices down the crapper” line to explain why you’re there. Really?! File this under “Moments you wish the Elections Committee was allowed to offer advice to candidates.”

Best Use of Props: DSU Health Plan Referendum

I know from experience that it’s hard to make a referendum campaign video interesting. I like the integration of legitimate props related to the subject matter. Props are also a useful way to prevent too much hand-talking.

Simms gets honourary mention for his pipe and what I believe is a text entitled Political Development and the New Realism in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Most Baritone: Frederic Perron-Welch

Obviously.

I welcome further submissions for the ECVAs in the comments.

• 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.

I ventured into the SUB at around 1:00 this afternoon on my way to the DalOUT office. I was there until 3:00 and I didn’t even make it to the staircase. I sat down on one of the couches to have a gander at what the candidates came up with for their posters. Within mere moments, I was chatting with Matt Golding [current VP (Finance & Operations)] about the posters and the upcoming DSU Annual General Meeting, which, incidentally, should make this week an even bigger shit-show than it is normally. Following Matt’s visit, I had sightings of and, in a few cases, full-on conversations with Snow, Zimmerman, Debogorski, Jennex, LeForte, Burns, fellow pundits Coffin and shutter-bug Hillman, and CRO Amyotte.

My advice to pundits and others interested in talking to or overhearing candidates: Hang out in the SUB lobby. I swear, there is some sort of homing signal.

My advice to candidates: For your own health and well-being, stay out of the SUB! Unless you’re using the time to talk to people who don’t already know you, it will just wear on you. Also, don’t think that being overly nice to the pundits will get you into our good graces. What will get you into my good graces is permission to cut you to pieces with wit (thanks, Craig).

On that note…

This year’s posters, some of which require a more dedicated viewing than I alloted them today, are what I would call generally adequate. Snow has re-used his photo from last year’s Senate campaign (fine, I guess, since his physical appearance hasn’t changed drastically). Zimmerman’s is clean and simple. Debogorski’s manifesto is much more succinct than last year’s, and has far fewer grammatical errors, but a whopping three mentions of food service. Also, I was left with the distinct impression that I, as what others would deem a “DSU Insider”, apparently “rule” the DSU. To which I ask, “Where’s my coronation?!”

On the BoG front, Harris and Rai opted for the “too much information” approach. Both have posters littered with photos, words and graphs (of all things). Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to get up from the couch in order to get close enough to read them. That will have to wait until tomorrow. Conrad, FPW, and Horne are relying more on their good looks, which is valid given that it’s BoG, so a higher percentage of people will likely vote on a “(s)he’s hot” basis, and all three are good-looking. Honestly, ever since FPW wore his job interview suit to a Council meeting, the girls have been crazy for him. The general response to his poster, however, is the question, “Is he Spanish?” (Answer: He is not) given the red-yellow-red horizontal stripes. Worldly as he is, Fred is aware of the resemblance and explained to me that, as I suspected, he was just going for two colours that attract the eye, and he has succeeded in that regard.

Hobbs’ and Simms’ posters use a similar distillation/contrast(?) (some photo editing technique for which I’m sure I don’t know the correct term). Jennex highlights, through pictures, his “in the field” involvement with the Union.

I think we’re in for an interesting and entertaining week, folks. I look forward to reading the comments of my fellow pundits and our gentle readers.