J ’ a c c u s e
Having sat through all the AMS executive candidate debates, I feel confident in declaring winners and losers.
The clear winner has been the Queen’s Sailing Club. Not only have they presented theirrequest for an opt-outable fee with ion and conviction, they have also pushed the executives to demonstrate their knowledge and position on the funding of athletics at Queen’s. The losers of the debates, however, were neither of the executive teams, but the Coalition Against Everything. Arriving in a true show of force, “The Other Campaign” showed their frustration with the apathy of candidates by not unning in either the trustee or executive races. It’s interesting to me that a group of people more dedicated to making a point rather than making a difference failed to even do that. The questions posed by the white knights of the disenfranchised merely came out as a series of personal attacks and loaded questions. I commend Team CMM for calmly and logically navigating the mine field that was laid in front of them, while TPC became flustered in their own attempt to speak in sound bites.
Most unfortunate of all, though, is that I had to waste this much space discussing the Others’ (a little Lost-esque no?) lack of content. In more then one debate, teams expressed frustration at the Journal’s lumping them into the same pile; TPC was downright “insulted.”
After watching all the debates I’ve noticed that there is a significant difference between the teams: while on the surface they appear to be preaching the same laundry list of half- baked ideas, the way in which they deliver these ideas should cause you to take notice.
CMM, ever the wary politicians, deliver responses that are cold and calculated. They know how they feel but are hesitant to let their colours show. TPC, on the other hand, will tell you what they think.
And they think exactly the same as you do.
While most of the four debates had similar questions with similar responses, there were, surprisingly, a few opportunities to distinguish between the teams. At AMS Assembly on Jan. 25, in response to a question about whether or not the AMS should external political causes, the teams gave their standard responses for the most complicated questions, ranging from external affiliations to athletics. Team CMM managed, after a careful repeat of the question, to play Switzerland and claim that the AMS should remain neutral and out of controversy. Meanwhile, Team TPC read from their script and merely agreed with whoever was asking the question. This remained consistent throughout all the the debates.
A close look at both teams’ platforms reveals you aren’t missing much if you weren’t able to attend the debates. CMM’s campaign material consists of little more then suggestions for the current AMS executive. An improved events website is hardly the soaring aspiration one structures a multimillion- dollar corporation around, but CMM has listed it as Item One in their platform.
John Manning has droned on about how the AMS is suffering from a lack of qualified applicants for staff and manager positions while Julia Mitchell promotes peer counsellors. Although noble, peer counselling positions aren’t ones that should be filled lightly. TPC has nothing to be proud of either.
While using a Nintendo Wii to attract attention is one thing, both Tedjo and Paterson have been around long enough to know that “Q.Ca$h” (clever use of the dollar sign by the way) is not only
flawed in implementation but it’s a sad electioneering tactic. Add to that a scheme to revive QCollege
in the form of LSAT and other courses to be offered at-cost, and Team TPC’s platform looks like little more then a wish list for first-year students.
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Tom Woodhall, MSc ’08, will provide regular commentary on the student election campaigns.
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