Day Four — Vote MR. Western

Omid Salari busts out 'the gracious.'

Yesterday’s blog was light on linkage and heavy on poorly-formed opinion so I’ll start you off with a link right off the top.

Blog the Vote was featured on Macleans.ca yesterday by parliamentary reporter Aaron Wherry. This is a pretty big deal for us humble insomniacs who put out Canada’s only daily student newspaper. It’s rare that we get praise from anyone — even on campus — let alone a parliamentary reporter so that was pretty cool. Certainly since we’ve hit MacClean’s on just day three of the campaign, we should be on CNN sometime next week.

Anyway, on with the show. It’s a special trenta sized Friday edition of Blog the Vote. On a quick programming note: We’ll likely do something in this space Saturday morning but maybe take Sunday off before getting back at it next week. Maybe.

The big news

Friday is going to be fun.

I have it on good authority that Omid Salari will in fact be launching his campaign on Friday, with website, UC Hill sign, twitter presence et al.

In fact, by the time you read this, the University Students’ Council speaker’s website and twitter account will likely be live.

He’s been gearing up for this day for some time and I think everyone has fairly high expectations considering his testiness in debates and his pledge to start his campaign “whenever I damn well please.” I still think he’s hurt his campaign by not being active for the first three days of this two-week exercise. It’s kind of like showing up 20 minutes late to a job interview. It’s always more impressive when you’re there on time and ready to rock and roll.

But let’s see what Salari has up his sleeve before we pass too much judgment. What are we in store for? Well, probably a lot of bluntness and not your typical campaign materials. The website will surely be an entertaining read if only for a glimpse into Salari’s wildly entertaining stream of consciousness. And I’ve been told that he will have a series of videos, taking both serious and humorous approaches. Forgione’s catchy campaign video is tough to top, but a fresh approach to the typically tiresome USC campaign video from Salari could get some folks talking.

Will his campaign be earth shattering? Will it fail to live up to the hype and underwhelm the masses? The answer probably lies somewhere in between.

Oh yeah — and there could be an airborne campaign sign above UC Hill. No big deal.

Hashtag madness

Twitter tells me lots of stuff I don’t particularly need to know, such as the fact more #Forgibombsarecoming (You’re welcome for that one by the way). I don’t know what this means but Forgione’s legion of followers was slowly mobilizing on Twitter Thursday night. Who knows what they have up their sleeves but it is likely coming on Friday. I would hazard a guess that it will be a video of some sort but that’s purely speculation.

I told you Friday would be fun

If only people spoke this nicely about the Gazette…

This arrived in my inbox anonymously on Thursday. Considering how hashtag excited Chief Returning Officer Adam Smith was to be on the cover of the Gazette yesterday, this should have him pleased as punch.

By the way, I agree with just about everything said here. Smith has been on the ball at debates and while I think some of the new rules this year are too harsh, I have to give him credit for sticking to them without fail. And it has clearly had an effect on the candidates — four days in and no demerit meetings yet. (that we know of) For the sake of fairness, this e-mail was not edited. So don’t be a wise ass and point out the spelling mistakes in the comments section.

“In all of these election times, it’s easy to forget who the real heroes are. Sure the Presidential Candidates are busy building their teams, pandering for votes and spamming students inboxes with facebook messages and sweet tweets. But it’s the people who are emailing them that should be commended.

Adam Smith, CRO and his elections committee meet frequently to make sure that the candidates are staying in line, and that all of their needs are met. Nicole Fassina, Communications Officer, has really come into her own as a liaison between the candidates, the students and the administration. The All-Candidates meeting that I attended was well-organized, a full information package was sent out to all candidates- telling them clearly what they can and cannot do, and the level of support has been un-president-ed.

Not to mention the Website. For the first time ever, there is a solid web presence from Elections Committee with links to all the websites and pictures of the candidates. It’s beautiful, well-organized, and well-implented. If the President’s really want to make a difference, they need only to look at Elections Committee.

If you see Adam or Nicole, or know anyone on Elections Committee, please thank them for making things so easy on all the Candidates, and for facilitating what is easily the most haphazard, childish, difficult, unorganized event on campus.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks.

yours truly,

Parden Swelling.”

Odd and Ends

• So, I was summoned to the Gazette’s front office Thursday around noon. That’s where Gazette editor-in-chief Stuart Thompson and deputy editor Meagan Kashty sit in the big chairs. Normally we’d have this pow wow a bit earlier in the day (likely week) but Wednesday was a Rick night, so noon it was. They asked me if I had any ideas for a front page feature for Friday’s paper that we could pull off in an afternoon. I said, “Well, I have this crazy idea…” And then this happened.
• By the way, if you can’t get enough of MR. Western, be sure to check out the exclusive online photo gallery of his campaign shots. Tell me you wouldn’t vote for that guy and his campaign-branded beach ball.
• Hat tip to my man Pat Searle for this one. Now you can make your own Andrew Forgione campaign song with this cool website that lets you customize Duck Sauce’s “Barbra Streisand.” This song was kind of made for student union campaign videos, no? Literally any phrase works — it’s ridiculous.
• More from Pat Searle, who was resoundingly praised at Wednesday evening’s council debate for his ability to think logically and string together a pair of coherent sentences. He and his friends with the Student Legacy Challenge string together a rather long, yet important sentence in this video plugging the USC’s Leave our Mark effort. Don’t be fooled, it’s actually not a purple store advertisement.
• The campaign videos trend has trickled down to even the faculty races as Jen Ye Won Kim and her team have produced this uncomfortably touchy effort in support of her run for Social Science President. Her competitor, Ashley McGuire, is currently producing her video which she hopes to drop soon. But she does have a pretty slick website which she claims is her first attempt at ever making one.
• Shannon Elliot, running for Health Sciences president, also has a dizzying, shaky campaign video that looks like it was shot on a roller coaster and nearly made me lose my lunch. Props to Elliott for busting out a tumblr account though. I’m not sold on councilors and faculty presidents needing websites and elaborate, wide-reaching campaigns like some of the presidential candidates employ.  But a tumblr page or similar blog is a good way to stay relevant and welcoming.
• I’ll end with a stray thought that really doesn’t deserve to be elaborated into a full section on this blog. When did the USC become a junior high school? Omid Salari just wants the USC to be cool. Andrew Forgione says students are intimidated by adults. David Basu Roy is ostracized and picked on by the USC cool kids. I swear I saw this episode on Degrassi…