The spring USAC election in 2007 is one of the fondest memories of my first year.
On a burning morning in late April, Bruins United and Students First! members attempted to cajole my friends and me into voting for their slates with lollipops and shiny, paper-cutting fliers.
By asking a few pointed questions, we were able to pit the rival representatives into an all-out war of accusations of negativity.
The Students First! representative said that her slate was a positive one ““ unlike Bruins United, which she said was “nasty.”
My friends and I asked if it wasn’t negative to call someone nasty. The Students First! representative’s response was that Bruins United went negative first.
The Bruins United supporter disagreed with this, saying that Students First! was “dirty.”
The USAC elections fail because they bear all the simulated signs of a true political election ““ unnecessary expenditures, whiny cries of media bias, debates, advertisements, false promises, angry and divisive rhetoric ““ with none of the real-world consequences.
Voting is a right that Americans supposedly hold dear. But to vote or to avidly engage oneself in campus elections is to take oneself way too seriously.
Another key difference between real politics and those of our sunny campus is the issue of legacy. A politician who serves a nation, state or even neighborhood stands to benefit from his or her work. USAC candidates are usually older students who will hold leadership positions for one or two years before moving on.
Are we really to believe that everyone running for USAC is so passionate about changing a school when they will leave within a year or two?
Or are we to realize that it is far more likely that the level of personal and popular emotionality that plagues the USAC elections are the result of a bloated sense of self-importance on the part of all involved?
Perhaps this blatantly self-referential notion of one’s standing at UCLA is best exemplified by one candidate’s post-loss comments to the Daily Bruin.
When Megan Ward, the Bruins United candidate for external vice president, was asked about her loss, she offered only a critique on this newspaper, not of her performance as a candidate.
The campaigns for the candidates and the PLEDGE referendum cost more than $28,000.
That money, accrued through a combination of fundraisers and donations, could be far better spent on any number of the campus’ departments in dire need of financial assistance.
Instead, we get to see candidate faces on fat signboards, their faces in smaller form on hundreds of discarded fliers littering the campus, and their real-life faces in our way as we try to make our way to class through an already crowded campus that is littered even more with their junky sandwich boards.
The Election Board should rectify this situation by preventing Facebook spamming and restricting how ““ as opposed to just when and where ““ a student promoting a campaign can badger a student walking to class. Perhaps a safe word can be instated. (“Get away” should suffice.)
Aside from the money wasted and the level of annoyance that the elections bring to our campus each year, the elections are invariably divisive. One sees their apartment complexes divided into blue and darker blue. Allegations fly left and right.
This divisiveness can only serve as another roadblock in the path of campus efficiency and responsibility. Though some might think multiple slates ensure accountability, there is a long list of empty USAC campaign promises (though none on the difficulty level of universal health care).
All in all, this campus deserves better than a trite annual ritual of antagonistic, faux politics.
Let’s skip the campaign and have students vote on information available either through a few comprehensive e-mails or merely on the election Web site itself.
To any students pining for the attention and sense of accomplishment a USAC election may bring, consider funneling your time and money into a more worthy cause of service. If students desire to better this school or leave a legacy, why not do so by, for example, helping socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students on their path to college?
And yes, you can make T-shirts for that cause, too.
Tired of the yearly election gabfest? E-mail Makarechi at kmakarechi@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.