Another Student Government election has come and gone. I, like a small minority of you, did my republican duty and voted.
To say this year’s election was a wee bit less interesting than most would an understatement. With the exception of the anarchic folks from the wonderfully named Mass Turban Nation, this election was the dullest I’ve seen in the five I’ve had the privilege to witness – my first was when I was a high school senior here for Spring Testing in 2002.
I can’t be certain the reason for the campaign’s general mediocrity. Certainly the powerful Odinet-Heaton ticket played a factor, their buying of billboards and general effectiveness at campaigning built them a powerful and insurmountable amount of support. I say this not as an accusation, quite on the contrary.
They ran an excellent campaign that dominated their few fragmented opponents and brought modern politics to this campus.
In the interests of full disclosure I am not only a political junkie but also a failed office seeker myself.
I ran, in my younger, more inexperienced years, for three sperate positions. The first, vice-president of East Laville, saw me in last place. The second, as a last minute addition to Jay Buller’s ticket as a candidate for senate in UCFY, I failed to make the run off. My last and closest race came when I ran for president of the Lavilles. I stood all day in the unforgiving late summer sun, gaining nothing but a close second place finish and one hell of a sunburn. By that time, however, I had taken the veil as a journalist and ceased to seek public office, though I still haunt the Lavilles to this day, appearing in a cloud of smoke and sounding a dreadful hack.
But I seem to have digressed.
Why is it that so few students care enough to vote, and even less care to compete for public office?
We’ve all heard students are apathetic, lazy and too self-absorbed to see a larger context to their world. It’s not a flattering thought, but, well there is truth to it.
Of course, putting it in the wider context of the way this country votes, let alone participates in elections, we have, save for a few elections such as 2004 and 1992, seen a downswing in the amount of folks marking ballots. Still, SG elections seem to be becoming less and less relevant to student lives.
We are far gone from the days when these races engaged the student body in shouting matches in what used to be called Free Speech Alley.
Today, I’m afraid, students see SG as less their representatives than one giant clique. Sure, anyone can run for office, but a student without long established connections – perhaps not as drastic as my colleague Josh Britton described in his humorous take on the process in his Feb. 10 column – is pretty well dead in the water. I’m reminded of the panel of “undesirables” at the beginning of “Animal House.” You can always try to get elected, but, well, you know.
Is there anything that can change this image? Probably not. Our generation, given the sheer amount of choices before them, tend not to share a common culture even compared to the Generation Xers. Instead, we exist in our own little spheres – I myself have three sperate spheres of friends of which there is little overlap. My own position at The Daily Reveille has served to both isolate me from students as a whole – I have chosen not to officially join any organization in order not to prejudice myself for or against them – as well as made me a figure that people I have never met recognize.
Perhaps we’re better off with only the informed, or the friends of the informed voting. After all, what is SG if not simply a proving ground for future politicians? Still, it is worrisome to think of individuals simply ignoring their right to vote and giving, by their silence, a de facto endorsement to those whom they may not agree with.
Do you have to vote to be able to complain?
No, but it sure looks better if you do.
 
Ryan is a history senior. Contact him
at [email protected]