I’d like to announce my candidacy for SGA President for the 2013 school year.
It’s election season again, and all these shenanigans within the Republican Primary process have ignited within me the naive idea that government leadership need not have the qualities of a leader or a firm understanding of politics. It seems like you just need to yell often and supersede yourself on a weekly basis with radical statements. I can do that.
Now I have never voted in the SGA elections, choosing instead to just find out weeks later that one of my friends is in fact our class president. These awkward encounters, usually in the HAWC, consist of me smiling in pain as the person explains their strenuous campaign and anger at general student apathy. “It’s pathetic, really,” I’ll lie in agreement. After all, the right to vote is the one thing that separates us from an oppressed North Korean Military state.
Maybe I’ve been apathetic about school elections, but I would argue there’s a serious dearth in transparency. These elections occur in a shroud of secrecy somewhere on the interweb, coming and going before someone like me is even aware of their existence. Well no more, I say. A revolution is coming, and though it may not be televised, it will be published in this paper.
Mimi Rothfus seems like a really nice, hard-working person that everyone can relate to and respect. WHAT?!? Whatever happened to presidents covering up massive scandals and passing legislation for personal gain? Could you imagine the gossip that would saturate the Peppervine if the SGA President had to endure an impeachment trial? I could be that guy!
I don’t even know how SGA works. But that’s why I’d be great! Let’s make our student body president a position of entertainment, like our founding fathers intended over 200 years ago. Want someone to campaign for a Chick-fil-A in the Caf? It’s ridiculous, but I’d make that my No. 1 priority. SGA decisions made via massive rock-paper-scissors round robin tournaments? Why not. Uncomfortable verbal gaffs? I’ve got them by the boatload!
If elected your president, you have my word that I will fight for the most inane of minutia, the impertinent and inconsequential. Tough decisions should be left to our Board of Advisors, not a student also dealing with humanities homework. I will devote all of my time to the most random of causes, hoping that all of them patched together will somehow result in a beautiful quilt of improved student life here on campus.
As your president, you won’t have to dig deep into your hippocampus to conjure up the memories of a HAWC with smoothies. The SBX3000 blender will be back and more glorious than ever. And that’s pretty much all I’ve got at the moment, but that’s one heck of start!
I’ve been complaining about things around here for far too long without doing anything to change them. But as Gandhi once said, “be the change you wish to see [in Pepperdine’s SGA].” With your help, we can start our own grassroots movement here on campus. Don’t sit back and let someone qualified and passionate get elected again, because that’s boring. I may be a disaster in student government, but who among us would choose to watch a traffic jam if they had the chance to witness a train wreck?
If you like good times, smoothies or breathing, then I’m your man. If not, then God have mercy on your soul. Help me get the proper number of signatures to get my name on the ballot (http://tinyurl.com/7ropkud), and vote me as your SGA President in this upcoming election. If you’re also running and think I’m a fool, let’s give the people what they want in the form of a town hall debate. You can prove your worth and degrade my candidacy for everyone to see, in a totally off-the-wall and unscripted format. And … if all else fails, we could just fight to the death.
Ben Holcomb for SGA President 2013: Because we’re all dead on 12/21 anyway, so nothing matters anymore.
