By snoadmin
Is it just this year’s candidates, or are the campaign signs littered across campus always this ridiculous?
It seems the absurdity has been amped up this year. From campaign signs showing presidential candidate Sean Zent and vice presidential candidate Larry Toney holding squirrels to signs of Associated Students Inc. executives John Haberstroh and Jonathon Bolin ripping their shirts off to reveal masculine bodies, it’s all pretty crazy.
That is not to say this strategy isn’t working. Some of the signs are entertaining enough to make us stop and read them, maybe even chuckle.
But in all honesty, they are mainly just a gimmick to pander to voters.
One of the signs for presidential candidate Jorge Soriano, vice presidential candidate Deshe Gully and treasurer candidate Agatha Gucyski says the trio plans to bring puppies to campus next week. As adorable as puppies are, candidates need to do more than set up a petting zoo; they need to inform voters on their proposed policies. Hopefully Soriano and his running mates will be there, puppies in hand, to talk with students and get their platforms out there.
It makes sense for more of the candidates to take this off-the-wall approach to their campaigns. Haberstroh and Bolin used humor last year to get the attention of student voters. Because Haberstroh and Bolin are running for re-election, their challengers must step up their game in order to stay at the forefront of students’ minds. It seems like this year, the person with the most ridiculous campaign might win the election.
It’s a little disappointing that our student government campaigns have come to this. It’s just the beginning of the candidates’ campaiging, but as of now, the campaigns seem more suitable for a high school than a college campus. That’s pretty scary when the candidates who win this election will be the executives of a multi-million dollar organization. Hopefully the candidates focus more on their platforms in the next few weeks.
In the end, though, we only have ourselves to blame. The way the candidates are running their campaigns is just a reflection of how they view us, the students, and what we want. We all sit around and talk about how silly the campaign signs are and how much we want to pet the puppies, so the candidates are just giving us what we want.
As for whether that is good or bad, and whether it gets the right people into office, well, we will just have to wait and see.
