Note: These are my personal views, and not necessarily that of the Insiders editorial team.
Those of you who’ve talked with me lately might notice an air of ‘not caring’ is more prevalent these days. I have in fact been trying to reduce my addiction to student politics, but elections are trying.
That said, it’s time to get it out of my system. While many people are doing endorsements, I always find it more entertaining to read disendorsements.
Thus, in the spirit (apologies for my poor attempts at witticism) of the sadly now-defunt Devil’s Advocate:
President
Omar Chabaan – Omar, we all know you’re here because of GazaGate. While almost anyone will by now agree that was a clusterfuck that should never have happened, I’m not a fan of activist-motivated candidates. Oh, and the lower tuition thing; remember what happened last time someone tried that? They pissed council off, refused to resign, and put forth a referendum that FAILED. Finally, your woefully bleak website tells me you have the political acumen of a mongoose. DISENDORSED
Jeremy McElroy – You did a decent job as an executive this year, and while you weren’t quite as vocal on some issues as I would’ve liked, you clearly have the experience and knowledge of being a past executive Also, mad props for once running as a keg. Your beard remains slime-free, and I look forward to seeing it in the President’s office.
Michael Moll – Your picture makes you look like a pretentious slimeball. Specifically, of the brand of slime that often oozes from our illustrious President. While I am a fan of snap judgements based on first impressions, I took the time to read up a bit more. That is, I tried to, but your candidate spew failed to mention the AMS or even a single salient point, and your website looks like a Web 2.0 designer had diarrhea. Not to mention how much of a horrific cliché your domain is. The aforementioned alone would be enough to earn you a DISENDORSEMENT, but your strong support from Bijan earns you a DISENDORSEMENT x ∞.
“Jerimichael Molleroy” – Your use of carefully capslocked buzzwords makes my inner hack go all woozely. And with the financial woes we’re in right now, a bag of money with a beard seems perfectly suited. I too could once see SFU from my backyard (well, theoretically at least), and you clearly understand the issues.
VP Academic & University Affairs
Matt Parson – Your candidate picture looks like you made sweet sweet love to a fisheye lens. Either that, or we’re voting for IKB steps, and you’re just part of the décor. Oh, and what’s with your website being 90% Facebook Like’s? I was so visually assaulted by this point, I didn’t try to go further. DISENDORSED
Jennifer Wang – As far as I could tell, you don’t even have a website. Unfortunately, while you may be stuck in the early 90′s, the rest of us have moved on to this century. That and the overabundance of the word ‘advocacy’ in your spew, which has too many letters in common with ‘activism’, lead to a mild but still bolded DISENDORSEMENT
Justin Yang – Underlining the word “your” in “your AMS VP Academic & University Affairs” brings back fond memories of my former involvement in student politics more to the South end of campus. You also have a functional, if bland, website and it appears you may even be competent to do the job. That’s good enough for me.
VP Administration
Gordon Katic – When I first saw your bio, I was afraid you were being strangled by a strangely thin tiger. I immediately went to call for help, but quickly realized it was in fact just a scarf. After I regained my composure, I skimmed your spew. Unfortunately you seem to have missed the memo that the VP Admin has effectively been renamed VP NEWSUB. DISENDORSED
Kathy Yan Li – While I agree with her sentiments for CONQUERING THE WORLD, I prefer to party with pants on, and glitter makes me itchy. DISENDORSED
Mike Silley – While you might have a sill(e)y name (I tried so hard to resist), that’s one genuine looking smile. That, and you seem to know we have a) a New Sub coming, and b) a lodge which hemorrhages money. Good luck fixing the latter, but at least you’re going to try.
VP External Affairs
Rory Breasil – You seem like a nice guy, and your heart is definitely in the right Bijan-hating place, but your stance on tuition freezes makes me doubt your understanding of the most basic concepts of finance: namely inflation. You also seem to hate suits. I like suits. They make me feel snazzy. DISENDORSED
Katherine Tyson – Clearly you like suits. This is good. What’s not good is the incredible speed with which you switched sides to “Team Bij” this fall. That much slime can’t be good for wool, and you wouldn’t want to ruin that nice jacket. DISENDORSED
Mitch Wright – While your posters display a convergence of blue and red reminiscent of the cookie monster in a car crash, your prior involvement as AVP External lends some credence to your campaign. I worry that if you and Elin were to both win, the AMS would have a serious hipster overdose, however you do hit all the salient points, and thus survive. Lets just make sure we keep you away from the blue and red crayons.
VP Finance
Arah Ehteshami – Earlier this week you mixed up the words ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’, and seemed to lack even a rudimentary understanding of the difference. This combined with your knowledge about the AMS being somewhat less than that of my imaginary pet gerbil, makes you ill suited to solve the deficit problems we currently face. DISENDORSED
Elin Tayyar – Elin, your ability to find disturbingly thin ties never ceases to amaze me, though your use of graph paper plays compensates in playing to my geeky Engineer side. While we’re still running a deficit this year, I have to say you tried hard. If anyone can pull us out of this, it’s, well, not the other candidate.
Board of Governors
I’m running out of witty things to say, so I’ll keep this short:
AJ Hajian – You seem to fail at comprehending what Senate does, despite having served there for a term. With that track record I’d be scared to send you near another University body. And seriously, a full-flash website, with SOUNDS?! Who does that anymore? DISENDORSED
Sean Heisler – You have done a great job on Board this year. Best of luck with your term.
SuperSexySass Sangsati – Having missed every single debate this year, I’ve apparently missed the hilarity of your campaign. Unfortunately, as I’m basing my disendorsements largely off web presence and prior knowledge, your lack of information is your downfall. DISENDORSED
Sumedha Sharma – What with there being two positions for BoG, it’d be silly if I disendorsed all but one. You also gave me a flyer today. Candy would’ve been preferable, but it’s better than nothing.
Senate
Yeah, so I really kinda stopped caring here. Besides, there’s like 50 bajillion people on senate anyways, and they deal with boring academic-type stuff. I DISENDORSE AJ for failing to understand Senate after a term on it, but I leave the rest up to your own discretion.
SLFS
I cast all my votes for the guy in the TRON shirt. That, and JJ MacLean, because he’s a cool guy. I also ended up seeing the new TRON with him and some other folks. How’s that for a crazy random happenstance TRON connection?
Oh, and the mother of all DISENDORSEMENTS goes to the AMS ELECTIONS COMMITTEE! Our EA was hired earlier this year than we have in years! Yet STILL they managed to completely bungle the election. That takes skill. Serious, disendorsement-winning skill.
*Note: While this was intended to come off as satire, it does fall in line with my actual views on which candidates I support*
Excuse me… *I* bungled the election?
1) I had a revamped election system priced and ready to go before I got this decision removed from my plate and told “UBC will handle it”
2) UBC handled it all right… telling me in mid-December that we’re in testing and good to go and then emailing me 5 days later to say “oops, no new election system for you!”, leaving the Elections Committee to decide either to try to get a new system installed over the holidays (which UBC just told us they couldn’t do) or to beg Council’s forgiveness as we switched to the only system we owned.
3) Even though there were Councillors behind our decision to use WebVote at the meeting, I volunteered to make Condorcet happen – and I did. In TWO BUSINESS DAYS. While still running Forums, Debates, and dealing with massive numbers of candidate complaints and whining sessions. I think I might have slept all of 8 hours in four days prepping that ballot and getting things ready for the polls to open on time – only to have UBC screw up the email that was sent to students inviting them to vote.
I’m sorry if bringing debates into the first-year residences to try to engage new students with the AMS, having an *entirely* online election for all AMS members, having iPad polling stations which are getting rave reviews, having the most secure and best looking ballot the AMS has ever seen and managing to pull all of this out of a fucking hat with UBC trying to screw me sideways at every turn seems to be “bungling” the election to you, but clearly, you have no idea of the entire story here.
I’ve had enough of hearing how myself or the AMS Elections Committee bungled anything. I’ve done nothing but damage control in this job and if you think you could do a better job, you’re welcome to. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
im sorry but what makes you more notable than any other UBC student voting in the elections? Exactly.
Stance- before posting that comment, maybe you should google “Andrew Carne AMS” and see what pops up. There might be a reason that specific people are asked to post their endorsements. Maybe cause… they know more than the average student? Just an idea.