Last-Minute Campaigning for SA Election in Full Swing

Bryce Jarvis campaigns for EVP candidate Aria Varasteh

With the polls officially open, candidates in the Student Association election are making a last-minute push for votes the old-fashioned way: on foot.

Limited to within the relatively small confines of the "campaigning zone," roughly comprising of the 2100 block of H St and Kogan Plaza, candidates and their supporters are advocating for their respective camps via face-to-face interactions and palmcards.

Ted Costigan, candidate for EVP (full disclosure: Costigan is a member of the WRGW Talk department), was stationed outside Lisner auditorium in a grey campaign t-shirt.  Visibly tired, he told WRGW News around 4pm that his campaign day had begun at 7:30 that morning.  After briefly speaking to a graduate student and informing her that she was indeed able to vote in the election, Costigan expressed measured optimism about his efforts, noting that "getting the word out" was the best option available to him and his handful of supporters scattered throughout the zone.

SA Candidates React to Hatchet Debate

The fifth annual Hatchet SA Debate on Monday allowed student voters the chance to see the five Executive Vice Presidential candidates and seven Presidential candidates respond to a wide variety of questioning.

Amanda Galonek, who is running for the EVP position described the debate as “Nerve racking. You think you have so much to give, and you’re really fired up and you really want to make a difference and being on stage sometime you can’t formulate exactly what you want to say, and that’s frustrating because I have so much that I want to do and sometimes you don’t get it out the right way. I would have liked to have talked about my initiatives for GWireless.”
 

Ted Costigan, also running for EVP had this to say about the debate: “It was great, a quick debate, not too bad. In and out. I didn’t mention a few of my policies, one of my important policies is giving ROTC students a ROTC minor.”

Sam Free claimed that she and her fellow EVP candidates agree, “The [debate] went really fast. We all thought it was a great debate.”

Laughter and Thereafter: The Audience Response to the Hatchet-SA Debate

As the crowd slowly filtered in into the Jack Morton Auditorium on Monday night, the tone was one of anticipation and support; an eagerness to find out more about the issues and support for friends running for the SA.

Though many students came in with little to no background information, and were at the debates to be informed about the issues and candidates, the majority of students already knew exactly what they wanted to happen in the upcoming year. Doug Arbiter, a GW student, argued that “it’s ridiculous you have to pay an initial psychiatric fee” and endorsed Jason Kaplan, whose platform concentrates on the issue. Many students supported this in addition to a range of issues from excessive stress on diversity to continuing effort in fixing Gelman.

However, much of the audience was not there about issues but rather in support of friends. Whole rows were filled with individuals seeking to endorse and cheer on a specific candidate. In addition to the large portion of the audience taken up reporters from the Hatchet and other news sources, it seemed like the general student body was poorly represented in the audience. Freshmen Ryan Huttman later said about the SA that “I have no idea what that thing is”. Many freshmen that were interviewed outside of the debate expressed similar views, having little to no recognition of what the SA is and what it does.