My buddies John Edwards and John Kerry threw their hats into the presidential race ring. I was feeling a little left out, so I figured I might as well join in the political action. After launching a presidential exploratory committee, my advisors informed me that the constitution prohibits people of my age from running for that esteemed office. Stunned that the forefathers did not have enough confidence in me, I began contemplating a run the next powerful position in the U.S.A. So I declared my candidacy for Duke Student Government vice president of facilities and athletics.
I gathered the finest undergraduate political minds Duke University has to offer. After hours of strategizing, we realized that we had no clue exactly what the position does besides attend heaps of meetings.
Eventually, we formulated what we thought to be a winning platform, based mostly on leisure sports. Since old people tend to vote a lot, they should want a candidate who avidly plays bocce ball, shuffle board and bowling. That was our first political miscalculation as Duke students' ages range from 17 to 23. We realized our second major blunder only three days before the election, when another DSG candidate informed me that he was speaking to AOPi.
No one informed me that I was supposed to meet with campus groups to promote myself. I think it's called campaigning. I thought I had better things to do. Apparently I was wrong, as I spent a whirlwind Sunday evening scraping together votes, though I knew it was too late.
Much to my surprise, I lost by merely 7.58 percent, not too shabby for minimal effort. I consider it a moral victory and attribute the loss to Vinny Asaro, my campaign manager. All failed campaigns should be attributed to managers anyway.
So now I am without a DSG VP position and couldn't be happier after last week's debacle revealed a maturity gap within DSG. Justin Ford's "goddamn meeting" was stormed by "hippies" as described by Avery Capone. Will Fagan then quipped that they should go to France. Capone obviously leads a sheltered life if he thinks that the people who stormed the meeting are hippies; they attend Duke. Ford is not Moses and shouldn't invoke the good Lord and the protesters would only be so fortunate to visit France to beat the summer tourism season.
Thankfully there were some mature people amongst our DSG representatives, including Cliff Davison and Alex Niejelow, who handled the confrontation in a tasteful manner, both wishing to engage the students. Rarely do non-DSG students attend legislature meetings en masse. When they do, they are either ignored (Jeremy Morgan's appointment to head line monitor) or yelled at in a childish manner (last week).
This ill communication runs both ways, however. Students, feeling disillusioned with their representatives, do not consistently seek dialogue with DSG. On the flip side, DSG folk do not often communicate with the student body. An email either way wouldn't hurt or, if you're feeling saucy enough, a face-to-face conversation, but that would be a huge step in the relationship.
Whether or not you agree with the tactics or attempted goal of anti-war protesters, they tried to communicate with our student government, something that should occur more often. DSG, like everyone else, should take a definitive stance upon critical issues. We cannot, as an international institution, begin to understand our global impact at Duke. For instance, on April 5, the Parisian paper La Liberation ran a piece featuring the many war viewpoints present at Duke. Certainly DSG cannot stop the war, but it can commit an opinion along with the rest of Duke.
So, even if DSG members or I cannot be elected president, they can still listen and even speak out on events occurring off-campus.
While you were watching Operation Iraqi Freedom on MSNBC, much went down outside other than DSG:
California announced plans to lay off 20 percent of its public school teachers, a move to leave many children behind as Bush presses on with plans to rebuild Iraq, including its schools.
Kevin Ogorzalek is a Trinity junior. His column appears every third Wednesday.
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