A GW Political "Black Friday"

Candidates placed posters wherever there was space.
photo: Dagny Asase

They came in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Hundreds of posters plastered onto building walls by small armies of students at the unseemly hour- by college standards- of 7 a.m. could only mean one thing. Student election season is in full-swing.

On Wednesday the GW tradition of "postering day" continued when Joint Elections Committee Chairman Phil Gardner blew an air horn at the entrance to Kogan Plaza. Candidates and their supporters then went sprinting to three locations across the Foggy Bottom Campus: the Marvin Center H Street Terrace, the Academic Buildings of Rome and Phillips Halls, and University Yard.

Once at these locations candidates and their supporters staked out places along the walls of these buildings and took out scissors, tape, and posters. At University Yard, buildings adjacent to the space like Monroe Hall and Bell Hall became advertising space for candidates.

The day is the first opportunity in the election season for the University community to begin to see who the front runners are in the different races for Student Association, Marvin Center Governing Board, and Class Councils.

SA Presidential Candidate and current SA Senator U At-Large John Bennett feels the day is important to the campaigns themselves.

"It's a really good display of organization, strength and manpower," Bennett commented, " It shows the other candidates what they're up against."

The posters used many different color combinations and ranged from a simple poster with a candidates name and the date of the election to others which employed "Buff and Blue spirit" or catchy phrases to stand out.

CCAS SA Senate candidate Omeed Firouzi woke up early to demonstrate to potential voters that the Senate position he is vying for is important to him.

"[Your] name and face being out their gives folks the opportunity to see that you're taking this seriously and that you're invested in it," Firouzi said.

Despite the intensity of putting up posters as fast as possible and running to different locations the atmosphere was still a lot of fun. Candidates such as Abby Bergren, who is running for Executive Vice President, said they enjoyed the experience.

"The funniest thing to me was that the intensity died away almost immediately," Bergren described, "About ten minutes into it, everyone was just helping each other out, trying to work together to hold all the posters up."

Note: Come to the Marvin Center Grand Ballroom on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. for the Fifth Annual Student Media Debate to see the candidates for SA President and Executive Vice President debate about the most important student issues. If you can't come to the debate, listen to the debate live at www.gwradio.com.