By: Khalil Farah
For the first time of this election season, all four presidential candidates met today at 8 PM for a televised debate. The debate was hosted by Grady News Source and featured the YOUnited party, the Ignite UGA party, the ReDefine UGA party, and the UGA Blueprint Party. Rather than structure the debate with just the presidents of each party, News Source chose instead to showcase candidates for all three positions, president, vice-president, and treasurer. The stakes for all four were high for the debate, as voting for SGA has begun and will continue through April 12th.
The style of the debate was rapid-fire questions with short answers from each candidate. With all the answers, there was never a dull moment during the debate. The excitement was not lost on the crowd, which filled the studio before the debate began. With a variety of supporters in the crowd, the audience was asked beforehand to refrain from expressing either applause or discontent.
Each party began by introducing themselves and outlining their general platforms. The YOUnited party generated murmurs from crowd members when their president, Sean Malone, revealed that all members of his party took a pledge to keep their involvement with SGA off of their resumes. He claims SGA needs to be focused on the students rather than on the careers of the candidates.
The questions directed at the treasures focused on their financial experience. All but one stressed their past involvement with handling institution’s finances in the past. ReDefine’s Ellis Edwards claimed his greatest attribute was his creativity. He pointed to his campaign, which chose to print 2,500 stickers instead of 100 shirts to increase their exposure. He asserted this creative approach led to 25 times the exposure for a sixth of the cost, and that this sort of creativity would help make the SGA budget do more with less.
The Vice-Presidential candidates spoke next, and Ignite’s Marshall Mosher spoke on one of the central aspects of his party’s platform, the creation of a UGA legal service clinic. Marshall admitted that this would be a challenge because of state laws regarding legal advice but also reiterated the determination of Ignite to see that challenge through, even if it requires some changes to the plan.
YOUnited candidate Kevin “Femi” Brinson lamented the lack of communication in the current administration. He promised office hours for representatives at Jittery Joes if they do become elected, when students could speak to SGA about their concerns.
The presidential candidates spoke last. Ignite’s Will Burgess expanded on the idea of the legal service office by saying that the office could be in operation by August of 2012. He focused on the tangible results his platform would offer to the students of UGA. He outlined the plan and pointed to University of Florida who has had such a program since the 1970s. Programs such as that at UF or University of Texas would be the models for the legal service program here at UGA. Burgess also discussed the idea of an academic major fair where students could centrally compare majors side by side and make better-informed decisions for their academic futures.
The Blueprint’s Bowden was asked about failings of UGA sustainability. Bowden promised the creation of a whole new committee focused on issues of sustainability. He said this would prevent environmentally conscious groups from having to wade through sub-committees in order to make their views heard. But, he also built upon his views that SGA should be devoid of any political leanings. He envisions SGA making a stand on issues only when the student body is united in their opinion of the issue. He expressed fear that if SGA took a stand on divisive issue, it could alienate students who lie on the opposite side of SGA’s view.
Charles Hicks from ReDefine defended his party’s proposed changes to the UGA and Athens alcohol policy. Some have questioned the proposals increased leniency as infeasible but Hicks pointed to past instances of SGA involving itself in Athens/Clarke County and achieving success For example, when SGA spearheaded a campaign to get students free access to Athens transit buses.
YOUnited’s Sean Malone also deflected criticism of his party’s proposed SGA student of the month award. He denied fears that this would alienate SGA from the student body and instead claimed the award would not have to go to an SGA member. Instead, the award could build communication between SGA and students who are driven to succeed in their agendas.
Each party was asked finally to sum up the one issue they are most focused on which had not yet been addressed in the debate. Bowden was excited about his opportunity to expand the connections between students and SGA. He stressed how much time he spent making sure SGA knows how to communicate with students.
Hicks went on to say that he has lived up to his promises by spending the day on campus speaking to students rather than preparing for the debate. He used this as an example of his party’s promise of “people, not politics.”
Burgess joked that his platform point requiring a national championship in football was rejected, but then seriously explained his idea of a UGA mobile app. He wants SGA to lead the effort to create an app which would allow students to easily track the UGA busses, access Oasis, and see events around campus.
Malone chose not to speak about a platform point but instead expressed his excitement about the upcoming election and the student involvement. He hopes the excitement will lead to further student involvement in SGA after the elections.
Elections will be open on Oasis until Thursday, April 12th.
