The Insiders
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Oct
19
AMS elections buzz
Posted by: Neal Yonson | October 19, 2007 | 20 Comments
As a disclaimer: this is a list of mere speculations, which is by no means complete, accurate, or in any way official. Some of the people on it are still undecided. If only more people would dish gossip *on* the record.
It’s that time of year again!! Midterms are here and the rumors are flying.
Here’s the speculation on the grapevine, (only as far as I know, I’m sure there’s plenty more):
President: Matthew Naylor (current VP External), Michael Duncan (current SUS president). Also, joke candidates from some Arts undergrad clubs. Woo!
VP Academic: Possibly (undecided) Blake Frederick (current AVP academic)
VP Admin: re-run Sarah Naiman (current VP admin)
VP Finance: Chris Tarantino (SUS dude), Omid Javadi (current EUS VP and and engineering councilor)
VP External: no word yet!
BoG Reps: Conor Topely (current CUS president and CUS councilor), Tahara Bhate (current Science Councilor)
Alex Lougheed (current SUS secretary and science councilor) will almost certainly be running for something, not sure what. I’ve heard some talk of several people from the Resource Groups side running, but I’ll update on that when I get more sources. An arts club is purportedly putting together a joke slate of epic proportions. Costume speculation anyone?
I’m sorry to report that Stephanie Ryan and Sam Heppell of Arts are both apparently graduating. I was hoping they would run. They’re the type of councilors that bring good critical analysis to the council table, and I know they’d do the same in a campaign. Perhaps they will still reconsider?
Comments
20 Comments so far
Elections buzz in October makes me sad. Its almost like the US elections this time around.
To me, elections are in January and that’s where they should stay. People have other things to do, better things to do, than care about the intricacies of AMS political hackery in October, November, December and January.
Any ‘buzz’ generated would only concern a) the people running, b) some others on AMS council.
My guess of the general student attitude on the whole matter: “Meh.”
:)
Yeah, I kindof agree. Also, it’s an annoying sort of thing to report on because name-dropping doesn’t mean anything to people that aren’t familiar with the AMS leaders already. But what can I say – media is reactive. I hear stuff. I write about it. It’s probably not that important, since I’m sure half these people will have changed their minds by the time January rolls around, but it’s still fun to think about how next year will shape up. Besides, gossip makes the world a worse (and by that I mean better) place!
Peter I take your point- it’s early, but the decision to run does effect your course schedule and a year of your life in a pretty significant way. I do think it’s fine for people who are interested in the positions to be thinking about it, and getting advice about it, now (that’s of course a bit different than stirring the rumor pot).
One of the things that we lost with slates was an active group of people who went out and recruited people for exec positions. I’m not really a fan of bringing back slates, but I do think we need to figure out a better system for recruiting interested students.
We are planning, through AMS Connect, some info sessions for the near future (more details to come). And if you are interested in any of the exec positions, I’d really encourage those people to come and speak with myself or any other members of the exec. I promise I won’t pass your name to Maayan either.
Jeff Friedrich
AMS President
Each of the last two years, the rumour mill had an extremely strong set of candidates running for Board. Around 2/3 of these didn’t hand in nomination forms, for various reasons. They generally made this decision in the three days leading up to the deadline. October is waaaaaaay too early.
Way too early for this. Way too early.
I think Michelle Yuen, SAC Vice-Chair may also be running for VP Finance.
also, what does re-run Sarah Naiman mean? Is she running or are you telling her to run?
This is hilarious. Not to say that my name associated with this list is hilarious, but it’s just funny to see the excitement surrounding elections already.
Thanks Maayan for posting this up early. I think it’s great to be able to connect with other interested candidates before the mayhem.
I agree with Jeff on this one in that we need to get students thinking about these types of commitments ASAP because there is a lot of time, energy and reorganizing that needs to go into this process so it won’t ideally be a decision that happens 3 days before the deadline.
Any chance the fire hydrant will strike again?
I hope so.
– Conor
I am for sure running, I don’t think there was ever any question about that…
Alex Lougheed
SLOFUC ME.
One thing that’s always bugged me about people announcing early is that it scares people away. I mean, it really does.
If a strong insider declares that they are running for a certain job, its pretty much clears the field of any serious competition. No one wants to knowingly take on the heavy favourite.
Then you get pirates and dopes like me as the only competition for 2 of the 5 exec positions.
Really, this sort of thing is political hackery at its worst! Boourns :P
Peter, I have to disagree there. If people can’t stomach the thought of taking on “strong insiders” what are they doing in electoral politics? they’re going to find out at some point anyway. Likely way before the all-candidates meeting.
[Homer throws a rock at some military cadets]
“They don’t seem so tough to me!”
“They’re just children, Mr. Simpson.”
I think Peter is right but I would also add that it’s better that people know to think about this sooner than later because they may actually realize the effort it takes to get elected and they may get a chance to learn enough about the AMS such that incumbency isn’t as big a problem to deal with.
The truth is that people will absolutely be scared off but the courageous ones will also have a huge opportunity by knowing this information and they were the ones that were going to be able to challenge the status quo anyway.
-Spencer
In reply to Conor: My inclination has been not to roll again. I only had one new joke last year (I could probably come up with many more now, but they’d go sailing over the heads of most Councillors, not to mention the general population). I’d be substantially less funny with a UBC President who cares what students think, and a lot of issues around information flow into and out of Board should be well on their way to resolution by January.
Don’t expect me to roll for election this year.
–F. Hydrant
I agree with Maayan’s point. In my opinion, all that is needed to having a decent chance of being elected is a knowledge of the AMS, a vision of what one wants to accomplish while in office, and ideally a plan of how one will realize one’s vision. I trust that students will elect their representatives based on these principles rather than some other, such as popularity. The problem, as I see it, is that not enough students “on the outside” of the AMS have a sufficient knowledge of the AMS to be competent enough to stand a chance at winning and as such don’t even bother running. The AMS still has a long way to go in terms of being more accessible to the student population, but that is an entirely different conversation in itself.
All your finances are belong to me
“To me, elections are in January and that’s where they should stay. People have other things to do, better things to do, than care about the intricacies of AMS political hackery in October, November, December and January.”
Clearly, you don’t have better things to do, otherwise you would not be reading your blog, much less posting on it! :)
Oops, by “your” blog, I meant “this” blog.
Listen there sunshine… I… er… um… dammit!
Well played.
But to be fair, I read this blog for university news, updates and tidbits. Also to comment on things I don’t like. So that such comments are read by random people, thus giving me the false impression that someone somewhere actually cares about what I think :D
Its really rather sad. But hey, it worked, didn’t it?
i nominate maayan!
am i allowed to nominate? surely.
Matt Naylor’s blogging on the AMS blog almost daily. Must be preparing for an election run…