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)

These days of voting seem to drag on.  Everyone is done campaigning and just wants the whole business to be over, ideally with their preferred names at the top of the ballot.  

Just over 38 hours to go; in the meantime, here are the day’s events.

• A day of endorsements on punditry.ca; scroll down for details.

• 30 predictions of winners in so far; it’s not too late to make your own.  Seeing surprising agreement on the winners given what we thought were close races.  Also, some of our loyal readers, whom we love, are clearly nuts, and others are not very good with The Maths.  Deadline is 6pm today.

• Two fines were handed down by the elections committee today, $20 to Snow and $10 to LeForte.  Neither of them is in any way close to disqualification, but I’m sure Snow would rather use the $20 to buy any 5 things from this list.

• I can now tell you that 311 students voted in the advance polling on Friday.  No totals available for today.

• I took a look through my files, and the last time a referendum question asked for the ability to raise premiums it won 65-35.  The time limit on that question was “until the academic year 2007-2008″.  I sincerely hope the price of DSU’s health plan didn’t go up this year in direct contravention to the Will Of The Students.

• The Gazette covered the presidential debate; my favorite part is the picture.

• The latest updates re SMAC, which has somehow become relevant in this election:
  • I’m told SMAC, the force behind the controversial AGM motions, has emerged from the shadows with an official website.  Right now that domain name is actually a redirect to http://no-atlantica.org/smobilize/, use the direct link if you hate it (as I do) when URL masking is used.  
  • By the way, I’ve heard a lot of indignation and even anger from those astonished that people would associate SMAC with NSPIRG.  Guys, when your website is hosted in parallel with an NSPIRG campaign, and your two contact people are (respectively) heavily involved in a NSPIRG working group and the founder of another NSPIRG campaign, you can’t be surprised when people draw a link.  Do what you can to distance yourself, by all means, but “indignation” is the wrong emotion. 
  • That leads me to my question – if any SMAC people are around, what I’m looking for is a clear and simple answer: why not work through NSPIRG?  Your contact people, at least, are both already closely associated with NSPIRG projects.  You guys are ideologically in sync.  They have funding and full-time staffers and office space.  Making SMAC a working group of NSPIRG is almost an obvious decision to me.  Why didn’t you?

• Last night I told you how voters decide for whom to vote.  A related stat: the top 3 ways voters hear about elections for the first time are from the candidate directly (39%), from the posters on the walls (30%), and through word-of-mouth (21%).  Yes folks, I’d say the primary driver of voter turnout is the candidates themselves.

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.

Edit from Mike S: Rob LeForte sends the following:

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.

 

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.

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