Joy! Today is Student Senate Election Day!
That might be news to some on campus, but we all should treat it like a holiday, because, finally, after a month, the “popularity” contest is over!
It’s the end of campaigns seemingly based on the Law of Triviality, the end of debates you need a bottle of Pepto to sit through, the end of candidates spending campaign money on pizza to pass out to people getting obliterated at Palmer Fest.
The end of having to walk past tables at Baker and seeing 12 students standing around and talking to only one another while everyone just walks by — or as they call it, getting their message out.
Today is like the day you get your cast off, the day you freeze off that wart, the day we declare victory on an aircraft carrier. It’s the day Sisyphus gets to stop rolling the boulder up the hill. It’s the day when Ohio University students don’t have to deal with grating Student Sandbox campaigning for 11 more months.
I think we should call it “Victory over Senate Day.”
At least this year we have been spared a little — one of the tickets has barely campaigned at all, spending just about $145. The other ticket (you’ve probably seen them running around in their Smurf-blue T-shirts) has spent $2,500 to $4,000.
Sounds fair, doesn’t it? But, of course, it really is of no consequence which side wins, because Student Senate matters about as much on this campus as the legal-drinking age does at Rio.
Because of this, I urge you not to vote today. Not that I really have to urge anyone not to vote — most OU students already couldn’t care less. Less than 20 percent of students voted in last year’s ballot, in which one senate presidential candidate basically ran on the platform that his mustache looked cool.
And honestly, ask yourself right now: Do you know the name of the current senate president? Do you know anything of importance they’ve done this year? Do you know when they meet? How often? Where?
No, of course you don’t. And you should embrace that apathy, because, reciprocally, Student Senate and the people in it really don’t care about you. And, even if they did, it’s such a sycophantic body that has so little real power it wouldn’t really matter.
Look at the Senate Bill 5 fiasco from this past fall, when our elected representatives failed to take any kind of stance on an issue with a direct effect on students because, according to their fearless leader, “It’s not Student Senate’s role to get involved in issues that are purely political.”
I.e., they didn’t want to upset anyone over in Cutler Hall. A-level bootlicking, the good old “college don’t try.” In what kind of world would a senate be involved in anything political?
The senator who wrote the resolution, Taylor Abbott, did have the candor to say what was really going on:
“I think some of our voting members are scared of repercussions. They don’t want to touch this. This is something that does carry weight and it does have meaning, and I’m not sure if they’re prepared for that.”
At least they did pass a resolution that “views any tuition increase in negative light.” Two days later, our Board of Trustees passed the latest 3.5 percent increase without batting an eye. And we’re led to believe senate’s voice has sway. Reflect on that “negative light” while you go a little deeper into debt.
But hey, they did keep their campaign promise to spend $100,000, a lot of it from the General Fee, to bring a big-name rapper to OU. And we students only have to pay an additional $25 to $45 to go! They’ll say the tickets are paying for the performer, which really means students are paying twice — once into the Fee and another time for the ticket.
Lovin’ it.
So far this campaign season, we’ve seen the rhetorical brilliance of our senatorial candidates right here on this editorial page.
In a May 2 letter to The Post, the three candidates running for Senate president co-wrote a piece that actually said, and I quote, “In following the other schools that already have policies on conflict minerals, OU could be a leader for human rights.”
So glad they can all agree that by following others, they are leading!
Why The Post actually feels the need to give senate more than cursory stories, I don’t know, and I work here. Honestly, I think it’s kind of like the attraction we have to car wrecks and Cleveland Browns games — you know it’s going to be terrible, but you can’t look away. It’s our own little brand of farcical politics that we can watch and mock down here in Southeast Ohio.
Really, this is a body full of kids who want something to put on their resumés for graduate school. Student Senate is a lame duck every year. Getting elected is what’s important; after that, they don’t really have to do anything — and they don’t. Good for ‘em.
I don’t want to be too hard on our senators; it’s nothing personal. I’m sure they’ve put in long hours pontificating on what nonbinding resolutions they should pass or what toppings should be on the pizzas they passed out at Palmer Fest. And they are just students, like me.
But, truthfully, I have no problem bashing those students because, whether they like it or not, they are public figures beholden to their constituents. Plus, sometimes it’s fun to be childish about childish things.
You may ask, “Why all this hostility, why get your panties all in a tizzy if Student Senate doesn’t matter, anyway?” And, for most of the year, you’d be right to say so.
But, inanely, Student Senate is more prolific and visible during the actual campaign season than any other time. I just wish that, in May, they’d work to be as imaginary, insignificant and irrelevant as they are during the 11 other months of the year.
Cameron Dunbar is a junior studying journalism and a slot editor for The Post. Is today a date which will live in infamy? Send your views to him at cd211209@ohiou.edu.
