Hi All
This is Mahdi. I was a CUSA executive candidate for VP-SI in the past academic year. As someone very involved and affected by CUSA politics I would like to share my opinion on all current CUSA candidates based on my personal and CUSA political experiences. Despite the lack of previous direct CUSA experience , I was able to present a powerful and convincing campaign and come third for BOG( board of governors) seat in the past year's election. I lost my CUSA executive seat to a ghost named Isaac Cockburn whom I only saw once before and once after the election. He never campaigned but he won the election! CUSA politics is full of weird surprises which are in fact resemblance of the poor setting of students politics at Carleton. Anyways, here are my thoughts.
President : Between Shelly and Mark:
I wouldn't go for Shelly. I simply don't believe in CUSA executive seeking reelection. Carleton has 20,000 undergraduate students while CUSA has only 6 positions to represents all these students. I'm very confident that among these huge number of students there are enough qualified, dedicated potential CUSA executives and that leaves the whole idea of an executive reelection an unreasoned one. Besides, CUSA is about providing students with a political as well as administrative experience. The more diverse group of students can enjoy this experience the better.
Also in the realm of student politics I believe in students representatives not students politicians. Students representatives are sincere, dedicated, professional (experienced) students who enter politics to provide a service for their constituents. While, students politicians, like any other politicians, are more obsessed with power than actually providing a service to students. They are good manipulators who have the gift of rhetoric and their policies are directed towards maintaining their power. Shelly similar to Saab is a student politician. Whereas Leam , Germy , Blake , just to name some, have proved to be students representatives.
From my understanding of Shelly, she has the character , but does not have the sincerity and conviction. In the last year election, she ran for VP finance while she had no previous experience in financial matters( she is a sociology major ), but ran for the position simply because it secured a safe road to CUSA office. Last year she was talking about fighting the exclusivity contracts while there is still no Pepsi on Carleton campus. I heard her talking about women rights issues and racism while that had nothing to do with VP finance position. Nonetheless, for the majority of ignorant Carleton students regarding CUSA politics she passed of as a convincing candidate while she was absolutely not qualified for VP finance. She was more of VP-SI material, and based on her previous experiences, I was going to resign from the the election if she had run for VPSI , but for some reason she didn't.
I didn't actually get to know Shelly until while after the election. I remember approaching her and saying congratulation for winning the election. In response, she said "good job" for coming third for BOG election and discussed the possibility of either Shawn or herself to opt out from BOG in favor of me. When we discussed the matter later on on the phone , she said she had come to the conclusion that my platform for BOG position was not the same as hers and she was not convinced by the idea. I respected her conclusion and asked her to do me a favor and not reveal the content of our conversation in the public realm. She assumed me of doing so telling me how could she be a trusted representative if she would not hold to a single promise.
The next day, however, when I saw Lyndon George, he told me : " I have heard you have been forcing candidates to opt out of the election on the grounds that you are a minority"!!!!! So, not only she did not respect the privacy of our conversation , she had totally diverted the content of our conversation. I wouldn't vote for someone like Shelly. She is a politician not a representative!
Moving from Shelly , I think Mark is a good choice on the grounds of his fresh view towards CUSA politics. Although there were some criticism regarding Charlatan's overall coverage in the past academic year, but I'm absolutely convinced that he did a better job than Kristy (this year's Charlatan's editor) . Mark is a new figure with enough understanding of CUSA who needs support. I see him more as a representative than a politician, at least for now.
VP Internal : A Strong Independent:
Between Mariam and Brittany , I'd go for Mariam. Mariam has been a CUSA employee for two years and knows the inside out of CUSA, but she has not been a strong clubs and societies person. Neither has Brittany. She is a RAAA person, and I'm totally in disfavour of another Adam de Cair in CUSA specially for VP internal. VP internal requires a clubs and societies person, someone with active involvements with this department who understands its needs and ways for improvements. I don't personally know Andrew, the independent candidate , but based on what I read in his website I think he is the strongest candidate for VP internal simply for his extensive experience with clubs and societies.
VP Finance: Equal Qualifications:
Skantha is a good friend of mine from second year university. He is a dedicated person with extensive experience in financial matters. He was one of the deputy officers in the last election. But for some reason, after the election , long before the clubs and societies' commissioner position was opened, he told me : " I'm coming back next year to take over the clubs and societies commissionaire position." As if he knew for sure that the job is his; five months before the job was even posted. Being a an election deputy officer and right after the election having a job secured for yourself have raised some ambiguities and concerns.
I have heard good things about Garnett as being an able person for VP finance position. However, I think the candidates are equally qualified.
VP External : Oz .
I'd vote Ozmyle period. He has the experience as well has the character. Further, he has worked very hard for this seat, I think he deserves it. His competitor has more new things to learn. I'd go for OZ.
VP SS: Not Ashely , For Sure:
Ashely is a friend of Keti and she sat on the CUSA hiring committee. She is a good friend with current CUSA executives and she worked as a an ally to ensure all executives decided persons enter CUSA as employees. And that's simply how she took over womyn center. She was also behind the whole pro-life anti choice campaign.
She very much reminds of Shelly, a politician not a representative. I would not vote for her.
I have heard good things about her competitor : Blanca, although I don't know her personally. With Ashley's utter disqualification for the seat, I think her competitor is a good choice.
VP Students Issues : Where Was Isaac Before?
This is the position I ran for last year against Issac Cockburn. As I mentioned before , he never campaigned, yet he won the seat. Isaac is one of the surprises of CUSA history; he pretty much came out of nowhere and his last year platform was all about the New Student Building, something which never actually happened. So when he took over the office, he really had no promised agenda to follow. He kept updating CUSA executive blogs on issues regarding what music students should listen to and how it's stupid to stand in lineups when going clubbing. He is not a controversial character; hestays out of trouble and knows who to be ally with to win the election. Last year , with Shawn and this year with Shelly. Unless, he has a strong platform this year, I wouldn't vote for him.
His competitor , though, i don't know anything about. So I cannot really comment. Thus, I'd do a research and depending on who has got a stronger platform I'd make my choice. But lets not forget that Isaac is going for reelection which I don't think is a good idea for overall students experience.
FINALLY: WATCH JAMES PRATT:
James Pratt , for those who don't know him, is a CUSA executive assistants. He has been at Carleton for almost 10 years now ( an undergraduate students) and have been CUSA president for two terms. There are strong presumptions that he runs the CUSA slate campaign machine, and some go even further to suggest that he , with his influence over the election as an election board member , has his hands in the magic boxes. Those who hold this theory , refer to last years fire alarm exactly when votes were being counted. Whether these are conspiracy theories engineered out of bitterness by those who lose the election, one thing cannot be undermined and that is the susses of CUSA slate in the past four election and he not saying hi anymore to those who have lost the election.
