Tuesday, March 02, 2004

With SGA Elections ending this evening, I figured I'd take some time to share my thoughts.

If you aren't a BSU Student, you should probably just hit up the next post.

Meanwhile:

-Be sure to vote. Check out the web sites: Team Tietz / Team Manship. Look at the platforms (agendas) and make a decision, if nothing else. Your vote may very well matter tonight. When you've made your decision: Vote here.

-My prediction: Team Tietz will pull out the upset by a fairly nice margin. Jayson Manship and fellow candidates have been using some clever political methods and language to pull over the votes from the "informed peoples" side. Many of the above average voters seem to respect Manship's current leadership over Ben's prior experience; not to mention a platform that, although already in progress, seems more promising than its opponent. If nothing else, these people recognize Manship's ability to play politician -- and I must say, he does a damn fine job of it.

However, the popular vote will sway in favor of Ben Tietz, for just that: popularity. On the whole, Tietz and Co. have done a good job managing their campaign, although many self-titled realists will say that their platform leans too heavily to the mystical story-telling side, and has listed things that will, for the life of us, never be accomplished. Case and point: potholes. Yet the key for Tietz is what I'd like to call a grassroots campaign effort. [Neglect the fact that the campaign managers haven't even looked into their campaigns this critically.]

This grassroots attempt is seemingly winning over voters from the younger (underclassman) crowd -- mainly those living within campus residence halls; as well as a few student organizations angered by what they call a failed Manship promise from last year. [Manship had promised better communication between student organizations and SGA. One year later, many of the student organizations are complaining that they haven't seen it.] Tied in with a strong voice of diversity and the faces to prove it, this Slate is appealing to the average and/or minority voter.

In the end, it is this crowd of loving Tietz supporters that may win the election for the Slate.

Only time will tell, though.

And for those of you who feel I just overanalyzed this whole process:

You still read it, bitch.

#posted by Dave 2:55:00 AM