The lukewarm Student Senate campaign season reached its boiling point at The Post’s debate Monday night.
Topic-based questions fueled the debate as executives of the two running tickets — yOU and REACH — as well as presidential independent candidate Jared Henderson squared off for the final time before Thursday’s election.
In what was a consistently smooth campaign season, some of the candidates used the debate to address their stances on university decisions and their opponents’ campaigns.
“These tickets claim that they’re accessible to students,” said Zach George, REACH’s presidential candidate. “But it’s pretty sad when people approach your table and ask if you’re running unopposed.”
Tony Koehling, presidential candidate for yOU, defended his party’s largely Web-based campaign and $145 budget by noting that his techniques, though not necessarily conventional, have been just as effective.
“There’s no way Zach can know if I’ve been accessible to students,” Koehling said. “We’ve shown up, just not in the same capacity.”
REACH had a projected campaign budget of $4,000.
Henderson went on the defensive when confronted about his sparse Student Senate meeting attendance during Winter Quarter, which almost forced him out of his Honors Tutorial College senator position.
As the current academic affairs commissioner, REACH’s vice-presidential candidate Amrit Saini oversees Henderson’s position.
“Last quarter was a rough quarter for me. I let it get the best of me,” Henderson said. “But I’ve been a really good HTC senator and I think that (HTC) support shows that.”
Attention was eventually shifted back to George and accusations of being administration-friendly, which he said would be necessary when making future decisions as president.
“I can personally say that I have an appropriate relationship with the administration and I know the lines that can and can’t be crossed,” George said.
Throughout the debate, the candidates all agreed on one thing: improving voter turnout on both senate and general election days.
“I don’t think the reason students don’t vote is because they’re scared,” Henderson said. “It’s because they don’t care and don’t realize how these issues will affect them.”
George suggested distributing more effective pamphlets to break down issues that appear on the ballot and to boost public-relations efforts to increase voter turnout.
sj950610@ohiou.edu
