Chris Teeny and Shauna Stadnik have now thrown their names into the ring for ASUW President and Vice President.
This pair is something to think about. Shauna was at the helm of last year's ASUW elections, as the Elections Administrations Chair, so she knows the rules well and was able to observe one election cycle in depth. Chris presents himself as an open book, and his bio and platform statements read almost like stream of thought. After looking over their facebook pages and their campaign pages, it's fairly obvious that both are fairly conservative Christians and the influence of their faith shows in at least one of Chris's platform statements.
In his Platform, Chris is both specific and vague which is a skill many people do not ever develop. Chris gives three key areas he will work on as President, and then tells you what he will do to improve them. (I am not sure if his ideas would actually improve the ASUW, but that is his intention.) The first section of his platform seems to be saying that Chris wants to narrow the focus of the ASUW and bring it back to the basics. In fact, his third ite
m says he will: "Unify ASUW on fewer goals that have more noticeable improvements in areas of tuition rates, transportation, podcasting classes, among others." The "fewer goals" worries me, honestly. Having spent more than half a decade involved in ASUW, I've seen it swing along the ideologies of the various people in leadership, but ASUW has, for as long as I have been here, operated as a Big Tent where every idea is heard, and if you want to go forward and develop your idea, we'll support it (if it makes sense for students). Hopefully, during the forums, someone will ask Chris to Clarify his point. The second half of Chris's platform are general statements about his views on topics like leadership, Diversity, ASUW Involvement, Safety, etc. In his statements on these topics, Chris seems to veer off into a rather rough comedy routine. The only statement that doesn't contain a joke of some sort is the one on Vision, which is the one that almost directly quotes Old Testament Scripture instead of telling a joke. It's a scripture I've quoted numerous times before, and it's a good concept (theologically or in the secular).Shauna's platform has three points, in total: reaching out to campus, the HUB relocation/construction, and increasing student voice. These three things are all admirable, and they are all necessary, but only the last relates to the delineated duties of the Vice President. Shauna will need to make sure she focuses in on how exactly she will perform as Vice President, and how she will take these grand ideas and bring them home to the ASUW.
Now, as a
ticket, these two will have to work much harder than any of their competition. Vote Big: Teeny & Stadnik is getting off to a much later start than their competition and, on top of the delay, this ticket will have a significant cash disadvantage when compared with the other tickets. Because ASUW elections policy allows each person campaigning to spend a certain amount, based on which position they are running for, the tickets with 6 or 8 members will have almost $2,000 more to play with.
ticket, these two will have to work much harder than any of their competition. Vote Big: Teeny & Stadnik is getting off to a much later start than their competition and, on top of the delay, this ticket will have a significant cash disadvantage when compared with the other tickets. Because ASUW elections policy allows each person campaigning to spend a certain amount, based on which position they are running for, the tickets with 6 or 8 members will have almost $2,000 more to play with.Because Chris and Shauna are so closely tied in with the Christian community on campus, I would not be surprised to see an upwell of support for them, similar to Dawg Life a few years back. That ticket had a full slate, but had weak leadership at the top, and still managed to elect one of their Director candidates. If Chris and Shauna are able to tap into that support, they could be formidable. If, instead, they do not manage to gather enough support, their votes could be a tempting prize for the other campaigns.
In Instant Runoff Voting, the system ASUW uses, voters rank their choices for each position by their preference. If their first choice receives the least votes in their race, then that candidate is eliminated, and the vote goes to that voter's second choice candidate.
With the four [Now five] tickets now running, were I on any of those tickets, I would now be working to not only build my own base, but also working to claim the second place spot the ballots I know I won't be placing first.
It would be nice Jono to have links of where you are getting all this information, Facebook groups, blogs, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, Most of it comes from the fact that Jono has been in ASUW for five years, serves as the current OGR director, was director and assistant director of Experimental College, in Senate, etc. There is something to be said for having just been around for a while.
ReplyDeleteComments for Jono, they may have filed later, but it doesn't mean they haven't done legwork before hand. And you forgot to mention that the DawgLife ticket only took one position, it was three votes from taking the CR position as well, and Gerald, who had won, had a lot of support from within the ASUW.
Most of what I'm doing, Dan, is compiling from their facebooks, campaign sites, etc, and adding in some of my own observations from the years I've been around... like Everett just said. I'll try to add a link section to help with people finding the same info themselves.
ReplyDeleteEverett, you're right. I completely forgot about how close Gerald's win was that year. Shauna and Chris could have done a lot of legwork, and I would hope they had in their base constituency, but their introduction to the general public was rather late as far as ASUW elections go.
Well, I'll just say, as long as they weren't stupid, they have campaigned to be the 2d choice of people, which should carry one if not both to office.
ReplyDelete