Okay, so we all know MSU Presidential elections are coming up. I had two of the candidates come to my Micro Econ class... and make themselves look very bad.

One candidate collected a large group of her supporters to sing Mary had a little lamb after she spoke, and the other one concluded with a guitar and solo voice piece.

Now I am not trying to be negative, but singing Mary had a little lamb afterward made it seem like the MSU presidency was a joke, and that we were still in high school. I'm an open person but it really turned me off. It seemed like they were organizing frosh activities, and definitely not that the candidate would be taking the MSU presidency seriously.

The guitar solo accomplished about the same thing, but since it was the candidate singing solo he was much more exposed, and having a lot of personal experience with music, I know it would take an extra testicle to sing solo in-front of 600 first years.

Is it common for people to do this stuff? Do High School tactics work?

I guess the bigger question is, does the MSU president actually wield any power?

What a f***ing joke. MSU Presidential elections are a joke anyway. I work at the poll stations the year Ryan Moran was up for election. A large number of the girls that came to the table said "What's the guy's name who looks like Prince William? I'm voting for him!"

Rossclot, here's an article written by the 2005/2006 MSU President, during the Presidentials 4 years ago, about his job. Hope it helps understand the job and the scope of the job.

http://freepdfhosting.com/2d72b0cf54.pdf

Seems like it's more of a popularity contest than anything, the candidate with the most friends, and who can get those friends to get their friends to vote for him, will win. The voter turnout for these elections is pretty weak as well, again, it's mostly the friends of the candidates who are voting, and others will vote for a candidate for stupid reasons like "he looks like Prince William" or they had an entertaining speech (like the two candidates who went to your class today attempted to do).

It's all a joke really, I'm not sure one person could tell me what, if anything, past MSU presidents have done during their terms to warrant their huge salaries. I personally have no idea what Vishal has done for McMaster during his term, and thousands of students feel the same way, which is probably why for the most part students are so apathetic towards the MSU elections.

Originally Posted by sniderj

What a f***ing joke. MSU Presidential elections are a joke anyway. I work at the poll stations the year Ryan Moran was up for election. A large number of the girls that came to the table said "What's the guy's name who looks like Prince William? I'm voting for him!"

To be fair Ryan Moran was super hot.



Two members of one candidate's campaign team ambushed me on my way into the Student Centre the morning. It was annoying, they like ran out and jumped in front of me and another girl. Students are busy and are often on there way directly to somewhere to do something or meet someone, jumping in front of them and immediately beginning to discuss the election and your candidate is kind of inconsiderate. The least they could have done was ask if we had a minute. Since they stood right in front of us and blocked us it would have been difficult to get around them and I didn't want to be rude. It wasn't a campaign tactic I really cared for.

Some of the things that MSU presidential candidates use as slogans are up on the current posters (Accountability, transparency...).

I just came from a Leadership seminar with some engineers from industry, and after reading that article, the MSU candidates should have all been there. None were there, of course.

Hey guys,

Your concerns are well noted, and (yes... I'm campaigning) I think it might serve you to take a look at the website of the candidate I am supporting. It's a campaign that is relying more on collaborative efforts to build a campaign that is representative.

Also tomorrow at 6PM and 7PM (..and every day after at the same time) we are having information workshops. Format is: meet and greet, introduction and discussion of platform, intro and discussions of promotions and basically we want people to pick apart the campaign to see if it is something people want, and is something that is feasible.

...but don't trash the website... someone else launched a denial of service attack on me this morning and I've had to rewrite a bunch of code on the fly to fix my vulnerabilities...

Also, I beat Huzaifa to posting this... he was writing an essay about the same topic.

Originally Posted by deadpool

(yes... I'm campaigning)

shit just got real.

Originally Posted by deadpool

Hey guys,

Your concerns are well noted, and (yes... I'm campaigning) I think it might serve you to take a look at the website of the candidate I am supporting. It's a campaign that is relying more on collaborative efforts to build a campaign that is representative.

Also tomorrow at 6PM and 7PM (..and every day after at the same time) we are having information workshops. Format is: meet and greet, introduction and discussion of platform, intro and discussions of promotions and basically we want people to pick apart the campaign to see if it is something people want, and is something that is feasible.

...but don't trash the website... someone else launched a denial of service attack on me this morning and I've had to rewrite a bunch of code on the fly to fix my vulnerabilities...

Also, I beat Huzaifa to posting this... he was writing an essay about the same topic.

where is the site? It'd actually be nice if all the candidates had websites stating their platforms.

http://www.kieran2010.com

...wow i need to sleep...

Originally Posted by deadpool

http://www.kieran2010.com

...wow i need to sleep...

so by campaigning you mean you are not running, just helping that guy with his campaign? like a campaign supporter or something?

shit did not get real.

I thought I already explained that because Andrew Tubbs did not want to be on my campaign team I decided not to run!

READ PEOPLE! READ!

Originally Posted by FireDragoonX

so by campaigning you mean you are not running, just helping that guy with his campaign? like a campaign supporter or something?

shit did not get real.

Yes, Ro is a member of Kieran's team.

Originally Posted by deadpool

Also, I beat Huzaifa to posting this... he was writing an essay about the same topic.

I hate Rohan :|

Well I've decided not to bore you guys with the essay about my thoughts on ridiculous platform points and even tackier campaign techniques and how my disillusionment with that was one of the main motivations for me to get involved with student politics in the first place. Student politics sadly does have a tendency for people to go down that route assuming people don't care about us talking to them about serious issues.

Which is a perspective I understand because more often then not most candidates when they go into serious mode just throw out buzzwords & unattainable ideas at you(Which I can say having been in the MSU for 8 months now) that your internal "that is pure bullshit" meter can instantly sniff. But having found out the names of the two candidates you described(One of them being an obvious give away as Mary Koziol) I am utterly shocked that the two carrying this out are supposed to be "frontrunners" and favorites for this campaign because of their MSU background, If I was in RossClot's shoes I wouldn't be impressed either :S

Okay so having completed my above mini non campaign related rant, I will formally go into "plugging in the candidate I am supporting mode"

Souldier, what you described is usually the case with MSU Presidential elections. However one of the many reasons I chose Kieran over other offers I got was his innovative idea about having a open source platform that absolutely anyone can critique and provide improvements to. Kieran had alot of great ideas at the starting point but his current platform is something over 20 people have provided input too. And alot of them were people that he hadn't even met before in his time at Mac, we pretty much invited anyone we knew who might be interested in MSU stuff to our meetings with the view of hopefully them joining up as a campaign team member.

The slogan "this is our time" sounds like a utter cliche at first glance but if you honestly look into what we ARE offering to any McMaster student you will hopefully change your view.

As Rohan mentioned we have open workshops at 6Pm & 7PM tomorrow and then next week as well regularly. You can show up, hear him out and then take apart his platform point(I will request you to please take a look at them on our website from before though!); If after that you feel as if you want to be a part of the campaign you are more then welcome to join!

That is much better then taking random shots at our platform on MacInsiders from a position of anonymity and twisting the words around! If you have something better we will be more then welcome to listen!

p.s: Oh wow, I DID end up writing an essay on another topic anyways, FML! :(

p.p.s: The Location is Lobby of KTH for the workshops at first!

Originally Posted by deadpool

I thought I already explained that because Andrew Tubbs did not want to be on my campaign team I decided not to run!

READ PEOPLE! READ!

:( :( :( aw man! could have got you the slickest helvetica type faces all over the school (lol whats with the full name? helping future employers?)