1950s political scientist Wallace Sayre once quipped, “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics because the stakes are so low.” After running for president in the past month’s Student Senate elections, I certainly have found that to be the truth.
This is not the first time I have written in to The Post to clear up misconceptions and out-of-context information that paints me in a negative light.
I do admit that FACE made errors in its campaign finance report (the most egregious of which was not putting a negative sign in front of the net total from shirts sold).
In an attempt to resolve these errors, I met with Dean of Students Ryan Lombardi and Board of Elections Chair Chauncey Jackson, at which time the latter said he and the board would not pursue any punishments at this point if I simply admitted FACE’s blunder in writing.
Furthermore, a recent New Political article, “Entire FACE Ticket, Including Elected Senators, Disqualified”, quotes Chauncey as saying “he feels the two disqualified candidates need to be held accountable for the decisions of the leaders of their ticket. ‘The board’s position on that was that the leadership represents the position of the entire ticket,’ he said, ‘and so those two candidates have to be held accountable for the decisions made by their leaders.’”
In fact, he said the exact, literal opposite of this in the above-mentioned meeting: that the two elected FACE candidates were not privy to executive decisions about shirt sales (again, Dean Lombardi can vouch for this).
In effect, Chauncey tricked me into providing written documentation that FACE erred on the finance reports so that he could turn around and present it to the Board of Elections as proof that FACE’s admitted transgressions warranted disqualification.
Such behavior is extremely unprofessional. Chauncey is not the only election official at fault: last year, The Post was right to call Jesse Neader “snide.” He seems to delight in taking his personal animosity out on me via petty quotes in public forums.
Students, what is the takeaway from all this? During future Student Senate elections, do some critical thinking.
Student Senate is no different from higher-level politics in that there will always be distractions that cloud one from making judgments based on fact. Above all else, question the media, which are frequently disposed to providing a lack of true context.
Finally, let me take this public opportunity to wish the brand new Student Senate executives the best of luck this
upcoming year.
Matthew Wallace is a senior studying
political science.
