March 02, 2005
SG Elections Split, Heavily favor Connect
By Karl-Thomas Musselman
I'm tired tonight and you can bet on some post-election analysis from me tomorrow, but I wanted to at least update people with how things turned out tonight. Omar Ochoa and Elizabeth Brummet of Connect won the top spots, including a Connect sweep of all the at-large spots, not all of which they deserved in my opinion (I'll get to this tomorrow). Ignite managed to take 8 seats total in the Assembly, Connect 31, and Jack Waite of the LBJ School won his Independent bid. Of course, there are still 4 hold-over 2 year at large seats from the Focus Party, one of which is Omar's seat which he will be able to appoint a replacement to. Here are the full results.
My only commentary and advice tonight? If I were Omar or the Connect structure, I would give some serious consideration to appointing Ignite Presidential candidate Jessica Rice to the seat or Danielle Rugoff who once again is a vote leader in her second try at an At Large seat (if memory serves me). Since there will actually be other members in the Assembly to deal with, it could be a step toward unity.
Posted by Karl-Thomas Musselman at March 2, 2005 11:35 PM
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We have to see who will be around next year. I like your idea about Danielle and support it though I dont know how realistic it is.
Elizabeth ran against Dobbs for a Two Year At-Large With One Year Remaining spot, which I believe was the one vacated by Jordan Buckley.
I was somewhat surprised by the results. I think Danielle deserves a spot in the assembly-- she's been trying to get one for two years now.
Shes going to realize how much it can suck once shes in there though. Those six hour marathon meetings are a real bitch. Then again, i'm sure she has some idea of this as she has done committee work (or soemthing like that)
I echo the comments. I'm convinced that Danielle Rugoff deserves to be there; she's hard working, dedicated and smart. It would be a good idea to offer her to be involved in a relevant way.
I was equally surprised by the results. I thought that the election was going to be closer and that we would see a more balanced assembly.
Naturally, one would like to see the best people on each side to get into the Assembly and not just one ticket win everything. Unfortunately this didn't happen last night.
Some results were frankly puzzling, like the guy at the College of Engineering that did't get in despite astounding endorsements.
Others can be explained by the popularity of the leading candidate: at the Business School, Grant Stanis (a rock star quality Representative in my view) brought with him such impressive coattails that even the also popular and qualified Paul Albrecht was surpringly defeated.
I think that Omar Ochoa need to reach out and try to integrate the most valuable people of Ignite; not as a healing process, because I don't think there were any deep divisions among the groups, but as a way to build the strongest possible SG. That would show his leadership capabilities.
The word on the street is that Chris Wayman of Engineering didn't campaign very much, which would explain him not winning the one guaranteed-Ignite seat.
ah... that's all I could figure out.
