Burnt Orange Report

SG / Senate Mis-communication

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

I know this is a couple days old but I wanted to point out that the fact that the head of UT Austin's Two major student bodies (Student Government and the Senate of College Councils) are not on the same page with supporting a student on the board of regent flows from not covering your bases. The lack of a united front can be embarassing (damaging at the worst) towards the goals they are trying to achieve.

In what seems to be the centerpiece of this Student Government's efforts (Student on the Board of Regents), one cannot let a failure in 'good politics' to foul up the agenda. The issue already seems to be eating up much of the available time.

Speaking of SG, it does seem that the winds have shifted some. No longer do I see or feel the Omar/Brummet ticket as being the leading force. Wes Carpenter and company (some core people from last year's RepreZent campaign) have been very active in their outreach. I would credit them with having the Big Mo at this point. It's interesting, because this year's elections could very well see some splitting of the current body as well as a year where one ticket does not sweep the results.

I would still say that Omar has more favor with institutional SG support (I agree with him more ideologically as do a number of the important Agency folk) but Carpenter, being one of those Committee/Agency folk has an in at stealing away some of that thunder.

Campaign issues? Not so clear yet though I have a sense that the Multicultural Information Center may be one of the big ones (considering previous flare ups this semester with the Hellraiser's "Cowboys and Indians" affair.

Omar, being close to the MIC will have many of the minority/cultural groups support most likely (an important source of campaign labor and votes) and similarly the Woman's Resource Center and GLBTAAA type of people might be more naturally aligned with Omar due to the Gender and Sexuality Center's similarity in nature (in ways) to the MIC. Of course, that means the Hellraiser types (many of whom fall into the frats and sororities) then may follow Carpenter, seeing that as a closer ally (which combined with his tactical placement of Colby Hanks (Chi Omega- like Brummet) as VP may split the other institutional base of support away from Ochoa/Brummet.