"There's no mistakes on our site"

Today, I was ambushed by Nick Gower (Students First vice presidential candidate) and his attack dog, Deborah Bloom. Gower had approached me earlier in the week wanting 'a minute' from me, then left before I could chat with him. They both ran into me as I was leaving the EMU.

Bloom: "We don't have any grammatical mistakes on our website."

Me: "How many words is 'press release?'

Bloom: "Oh, we fixed that..." (But not before I pointed it out on this blog)

Anyway, Gower and Bloom kept arguing with me that they didn't have any grammatical mistakes on their Facebook page.

I should have just left it at that. 

I should have just smiled, walked away and said "have a nice day." It would have been more entertaining for me (I wonder how much time they spent pouring through their page and searching for other errors) and it would have upset them more. 

But being the nice guy that I am, I informed them that they used an ellipsis in their poster incorrectly (none of them knew what an ellipsis was until I explained that it was that "dot dot dot" thing). And they even argued about that. 

More importantly, they were arguing with me about grammar. Grammar is important in that it needs to be used correctly in order to be taken seriously (will students take a candidate seriously who cannot spell "press release" correctly?), but it is not important enough that candidates need to seek out people who call them out on their mistakes and vent their frustrations. It would  be much more productive to sift through the page, make any  corrections that need to be made and move on. 

But of course (contrary to the feelings of ASUO executive hopeful Michelle Haley), campaigning brings out the worst in people. 

I hope the rest of the ASUO hopefuls don't take offense when someone notices a grammatical mistake on some of their campaign material.

Students First: Politically motivated, grammatically inept

I finally found the platform for the Students First slate! They look like they have a rock solid platform. Here are two of their goals:

Making sure students in the res halls know their rights (Resident hall students are traditionally unaware that they have the right to free speech, own firearms [in theory] and to remain silent after arrested. For some reason, the residents in my hall thought they had the right to keep illegal drugs in their room too. Perhaps Students First will educate them if elected.)

Daily pressreleases to the Daily Emerald (Hopefully they do not use whoever set up their facebook group. 'Press release' is two words, not one. And by the way, sending press releases to a news outlet every single day is the best way to get ignored by them. The best way to keep the media involved: do things that are actually relevant to students.)

Supporters and potential supporters of the Students First slate will enjoy deciphering cryptic campaign promises (making the UO environmentally and fiscally sustainable) and dramatic political statements ("Students First embraces the differences that allow the ASUO to have only one bias: students.") However, supporters will have to deal with the slate's inability to use the English language and grammar to properly and effectively communicate (from the slate's poster: "Creating practical policies... not personal crusades").

Lol @Nick Gower

In today's Daily Emerald, ASUO senator and vice presidential candidate Nick Gower has stated that his campaign, the Students First coalition, will not actively campaign until Thursday. Which means that his slate was caught unprepared for the first couple of days.

Tactics win campaigns, and lack of preparation loses them.

Gower also believes he can win just by having the support of programs. But what Gower doesn't realize is that ASUO is not just about programs, and programs do not make up the majority of voting students (as shown by last year's Oregon Action Team).

But I'm sure he'll find that out on his own soon enough.

As a side note, the True Blue campaign definitely has the most visibility on campus.

The votes are in

I don't know if anyone noticed, but I started a little poll on the sidebar:

Is ASUO something that should be taken seriously, or is it a giant joke?

I spelled 'seriously' wrong on purpose (you know I'm lying). Of the 8 people who have voted, three are twitter users, four are old school internet users, and one actually thinks that this whole ASUO thing is serious business.

There's still a couple of days for the twitter users to defeat the oldschool webbies. And yes, the 'serious ASUO' crowd still has a chance to win too.

True Blue has a website (and their platform is hillarious)

It's true. The lollerz of the True Blue campaign have launched a website with campaign information. Their platform page is particularly ambitious, which makes it all the more humerus.

Here are some of the things they want to accomplish while in office... but in all likelihood will never be able to:

1. Advocate for open source textbooks and implement a textbook exchange program that saves students money -- Many campaigns have promised this, but most sucessful candidates have either forgotten this campaign promise or have otherwise been unable to deliver. Don't expect anything different from True Blue.
2. Take students to Salem three times every term to advocate for Higher Education issues -- Former president Emily McClain was barely able to do this once a term (or year, I can't remember which), and she was more of a bleeding heart than the True Blue campaigners are. And if this were to be implemented, what sort of support would students receive if the issues they wanted to raise were not 'in line' with True Blue ideology (for example, lowering the I Fee by cutting student services)?
3. Push for the creation of a universal campus cash system applicable in both UO Housing and the EMU Food Services -- They would be fighting the EMU, housing and catering. Good luck with that.
   
4. Create a Congressional Action Center that will provide students with the opportunity to engage in phone calls or letter writing to their Senator or Congressman -- This one is confusing. Can't we as students pick up our own phones or write our own letters to our congress?
   
5. Renovate the EMU by investing in energy efficient heating systems, while simultaneously bringing revenue-generating business to the EMU -- How do they plan to do this? "We will utilize the Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit funds , which are not collected from student fees, in order to update the EMU’s heating and energy sources." Good luck with that. Not to sound like a cynic or anything, but...
   
6. Institutionalize the UO Bike Loan Program to encourage alternative transportation methods to campus and alleviate the strain on campus parking -- ...and increasing student fees.

Visit their website for more of their interesting platform ideas.

I hear Oregon Action Team is going to put up a website too. We'll post their shenanigans as soon as they do.

LOLerz (ASUO Presidential Candidates) refuse spending cap

(Read it here)

Last year's president spent close to $10,000 to become the head of Eugene's biggest circus. The real question is this: Do other ASUO candidates have deep enough pockets to make this year's election as entertaining as last years? 

First Post

This is my first attempt at posting. Kind of want to see what stuff is gonna look like on this blog.

ASUO is so funny. OMFG Lolz!