punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

I’ll post my recap of the Presidential Debate later this afternoon, I promise.  There’s still one more day of voting left, and I really can’t resist the urge to ask Debo what the heck was with the 5 (non-reusable) cups of tea/coffee.

In other news, for those of you who don’t incessently troll the comments like I do, SMAC is having an information shin-dig outside the Killam library TODAY at 4:00pm.  I, for one, would not miss this for the world.  The last time SMAC had a “public” organizing meeting, all accounts (I wasn’t there) were that the perceived “pro DSU” types found themselves not welcome.  Let’s see if “fostering critical thought” works both ways for SMAC this afternoon…

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.

Part of the reason I haven’t reoffered my services to the DSU electorate is simply that I feel a majority of the fierce debates student politicians have are quite useless. For example, topics that have captivated the DSU exec and council lately include:

• What should the format of our website be? (This is a no-brainer, it should be something that is accessible to users on computers outside of Soviet Russia)
• Should we have one member at large on council, or three?
• Should we have a handbook for the recruitment committee?
• What should we order for food: Indian or Thai?

While important issues (like I expect of our annual budget) often pass by with little or no debate.

But today, he’s done it. An issue worth talking about. Now, not only is Mr. Snow a better writer than Ms. Zimmerman, there’s actually a difference between them worth discussing!

Eric’s latest facebook group (a bad idea in my opinion, I hate redundant groups) is used for him to voice his opposition to NSPIRG. While he doesn’t tie himself to the official petition, he does essentially say what their saying, with more diplomatic and politically correct words. I am however impressed at how strong his wording is.

Here is what he says he will do to take action on NSPIRG:

GIVING STUDENTS A CHOICE, THROUGH A REFERENDUM, ON THE FUTURE OF NSPIRG’S LEVY – It should be the choice of all students, not the DSU Executive or Council, to determine whether or not the levy for NSPIRG will continue. All students deserve to have a say.

ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY FROM NSPIRG: EQUAL TREATMENT FOR ALL SOCIETIES – With or without a levy, NSPIRG has to be held accountable for its actions and the actions of its working group. Creating separate names for groups like SCAW or SMAC, with overlap in membership and resources, cannot continue to be used as a method of escaping accountability.

HOLDING INDIVIDUALS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS – A member of the NSPIRG staff has struck one of the DSU Executive. There have been accusations of vandalism in the SUB and across the Dalhousie campuses. While there is a due process to follow, holding individuals responsible for their actions is necessary if we are to have a safe student community.

I am surprised he hasn`t mentioned anything about kicking them out of the building. That is valuable space, and I`m sure there are lots of other societies that would be interested in getting some community space on campus.

What does Shannon say on the subject? Nothing. Neither her blog, website nor her facebook group say anything on the subject.

Either Eric is playing strategy here, or he really hates NSPIRG. The strategist in him likely knows that he is either in a tie or lagging closely behind his chief opponent. When you consider the fact that Shannon’s been passively working on this campaign for three years, I wouldn’t expect any opponent of her’s to be doing well either. The PIRG portion of your platform may just throw you over the top, Eric. Essentially, it all comes down to which side has more voters on it. Judging from the turnout at our AGM, NSPIRG has about half as many people willing to come out and support them than do those who are either undecided or in support of the STOPNSPIRG approach. The challenge, being this late in the game, is getting the word out with only about two full days left of campaigning.

I for one, cannot wait until this topic comes up in monday’s debate.

Post-post note: 

I realize that Eric was never silent about his feelings toward PIRG, but throughout the campaign he has been purposely diplomatic about NSPIRG,  not mentioning what most of us have assumed to be his true feelings. 

• 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:

 

Gregory Debogorski	0
Eric Snow	190
Shannon Zimmerman	243
Edgar Burns	140
Rob LeForte	274
Mark Hobbs	164
Craig Jennex	149
Kris Osmond	171
Janet Conrad	100
Adam Harris	96
Will Horne	102
Fred Perron-Welch	85
Vikram Rai	47
Glenn Blake	0
Meredith Evans	49
Shane Simms	65
Referendum Propaganda	79

• 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.

6:30:  I arrive at the second floor of the SUB.  I haven’t seen this many students since the War in Iraq motion of ’03.  It’s going to take a long time to get all of these people verified as Dal students.

6:50:  I’m in, but not after getting stuck in the middle of a scuffle btwn. Dal Security and a guy who  “works for NSPIRG” (his words, not mine).

7:00:  I’m sitting in the back with the bad kids.  Next to VP I Candidate Craig Jennex and CRO Sarah Amyotte.  I also made a new friend, Greg A. (not Deborgorski).  He is fascinated by the craziness of tonight.

7:14:  Mat Brechtel starts the meeting.  I hope he stretched well beforehand.

7:20:  Motion to amend the agenda to add a motion re: letting in the non-Dal students who are staging a sit-in outside to be inside.

7:29:  Motion fails.  I can’t remember the number for and against.  I recorded my vote for.  I say we should talk about it.

7:30:  Motion by the VP Finance to strike the contract motion and the CASA motion from the agenda.

7:36:  Challenge to the chair!  Note:  We haven’t even accepted the agenda yet.  Mat is currently explaining what this means.  Better you than me, friend.

7:42:  Tara Gault is here!

7:43:  I am absolutely lost on this.  I have no idea what’s going on anymore.  I am going to run out and get a paper copy of the Constitution.  I can’t scroll through my electronic copy fast enough.

7:47:  The offices are locked.  I don’t have a paper copy as a result.  In other news, the cops are here.  There’s a girl here who isn’t a Dal student who won’t leave.  Apparently she works for the Gazette (according to the guy who was just yelling at the cop).  Greg A. continues to be fascinated.

7:51:  We’re voting on the challenge to the chair.   It just passed, that means that the aforementioned motions will be struck from the agenda.

8:01: We’re moving on a vote to the second challenge to the chair.  If you vote yes, the girl from the Gazette gets to stay.  If you vote no, she goes.  Very clear, Mat (I really hope someone is buying him several beers after this).

8:03: Someone just proposed the cops be ejected.  Greg Deborgorski just likened this meeting to Nazism.  He apologized.  Mat Brechtel ignored the cop outburst.

8:03:  Motion to challenge the chair fails.

8:03:  This must be what it’s like to go to York.

8:05:  New motion to add a motion to the agenda.  Motion about quorum at the meetings.  BIRT:  If the meeting is adjourned, council will hold a subsequent General meeting to discuss the other issues within 3 weeks.  To be clear, this is a motion to simply add this motion to the agenda.

8:09:  Motion passes.  There are now 5 cops here.  Greg A. says “The jails in Dartmouth must be unguarded.”

8:10:  Motion to add the newest motion that we just passed to the top of the agenda after business of the executive.

8:11:  Motion passes.

8:12:  Motion to add a motion.  Daniel Pink moves that NSPIRG makes an official apology by April 1 for being general jerks , they should stop funding their non-student staff and they should vacate the SUB (Daniel is much more eloquent than I).

8:12:  The Gazette girl and Greg Debogorski have just been removed from the room by the police.

8:15:  A NSPIRG member just rose on a point of personal privilege (that wasn’t).  NSPIRG doesn’t organize Lockheed Martin protests, they just have a “working group” that facilitates “critical thinking.”

8:17:  Discussions re: whether or not to put Dan Pink’s motion on the agenda.  Point well taken that this is a motion that greatly affects students and thus should have been moved 2 weeks ago.

8:18:  I’m not going to lie.  I feel really bad for Mat Brechtel.

8:18:  Greg A. says that this is like “chocolate cake on a Sunday morning.”  I agree.

8:22:  I just had an outburst.  One of the NSPIRG people just said that the NSPIRG levy was between students and NSPIRG and had “nothing to do with the DSU.”  I yelled “What?!  Are you out of your mind?!”  It takes quite a lot for me to yell out of turn (ask my grade 3 teacher).  These people are cray cray.

8:24:  We are voting on whether or not to add the Dan Pink motion to the agenda.  I’m not a mathmagician (typo, it’s staying), but this motion is getting on the agenda.

8:28:  Oh, I forgot about the 2/3 part.  Mat is recounting.

8:28:  Sarah Amyotte just levied her first fine against Debo for the Nazism comment.

8:31:  Motion to add the Dan Pink motion to the agenda fails.  VP FO Mat Golding moves for a ballot vote.

8:34:  Challenge to the chair re: allowing the ballot vote.  His challenge starts with “I want to tell you a story…”  It’s a parable about a butterfly…I can’t re-phrase it.

8:36:  We’re moving to a vote as to whether or not we should have a ballot vote.

8:43:  We’re having a ballot vote.  There was a lot of confusion as to how we would go about that.  I went and got logoed paper for us to vote on.  There is a rep from each side (we’re taking their word for it) who will work as scrutineers.  This is officially a gong show.

8:47:  I would like to be in the mind of one of these people…how do you be so contrary about everything?  It’s painful, really.

8:49:  Mat is very patiently trying to make this ballot vote happen.  I kind of felt badly for suggesting to Mat how we might do it.

9:09:  We are having a ballot vote now on whether or not to add the Dan Pink motion onto the agenda.  Mat is currently explaining everything to us.  This needs a 2/3 majority to pass.

9:17:  Just to be clear, we haven’t even accepted the agenda yet.

9:20:  We’re now voting on whether to extend the meeting until the building closes.  We’re kinda sorta close to the 3 hour mark.

9:24:  The meeting has now been extended to 10:45.

9:26:  Shout out to John Hurley for bringing Starbuck sustenance.   Also a shout out to Murray for coming down to join in on the action…liveblogging brings all the boys to the yard.

9:36:  Mat is speaking.  Everyone listen.

9:36:  I think I just had a conniption fit in my mind.  There were 8 more ballots counted than handed out.  This made a difference to the 2/3 majority.  We get to have a ballot vote again.  I’m not joking at all.

9:38:  Fred Perron-Welch “Point of Information:  How did you guys fuck this up?”  Mat says we are very close to the end of decorum.  I think we passed that point a long time ago.

9:42:  Just a reminder.  We haven’t actually passed the agenda yet.

<<9:45: punditry.ca goes down>>

10:11: Punditry.ca just crashed. I have continued on a Word document and will post it later.

10:13: 116 to 56. 67% The motion passes. Now someone is complaining about how close it was. Apparently this doesn’t work out mathematically. Mat has ruled the motion passes.

10:15: Motion to move the business of the executive to the end of the agenda. It has been seconded. Mark Coffin says that the business of the executive is actually very relevant to the new business at hand.

10:17: There was a friendly amendment to just move the motion about having another general meeting w/in the next three weeks to deal with unresolved issues. Passes unanimously.

10:18: Motion to APPROVE THE AGENDA!!!!!!!

10:19: It passes!!! We now have to debate the motion about whether or not we should have a meeting three weeks hence re: unresolved issues.

10:19: Courtney just asked whether or not this motion violates the constitution. It doesn’t. However, because of the wording of the by-laws, coupled with the wording of the motion, we must have the meeting on April 1^st and only April 1^st. Trust me on this one, I couldn’t make it up if I tried.

10:20: I am sitting in the midst of a Mat Brechtel fan club. He is very pretty, apparently.

10:24: Motion passes. We are having a new meeting on April 1^st. We now move onto business of the executive.

10:26: Courtney has started her report.

10:27: Greg A. “Serving students since 1966, eh?” John Hurley “Oh, I thought that’s when the meeting started.” Zing!

10:35: We’re back up and live!

10:38:  Dan just started his report.  There’s a powerpoint presentation.  Someone just cackled rudely when Dan mentioned he wanted to help societies transition into the next year.

10:40:  Why is this writing so small?  I really shouldn’t be the one trusted with the interwebs.

10:45: The meeting is ending…now.  Dan is speeding up so that he might finish before the deadline.  Impressive.

10:45:  Annnd, we’re done.  Thanks to all of you for sticking with me through all of this (two crashes, I’m impressed).  A special shout out to Greg A. for putting up with my snarky comments for the entirety of the meeting, and to John and Murray for providing some much needed mid-AGM hilarity.  See you all on April 1st (of course I’ll be there, it’s not like I have a degree to finish or anything…)