Day Nine — Your days are numbered, dancers

David Basu Roy, hob nobbin' with a couple USC big wigs and showin' a little chest. Who says this guy doesn't have flash?

It’s funny the things you see when you’re walking home from campus at midnight.

There I was, hiking home with MeaganAtGazette after another 14 hour day when we saw around 20-some diligent Forgionians (how long till that’s hashtaged on Twitter?) armed with snow shovels furiously digging away at University College hill in order to make some sort of snow-based campaign advertisement.

Solid move, I say. Like David Basu Roy said in the comments section yesterday, “That’s what campaigning is all about – if one candidate finds a creative way to campaign before the others, power to them.”

It’s another instance of a candidate finding an innovative way to squeeze around the campaign rules. The Board of Governors may have limited the sizes and locations of signs, but they didn’t say anything about the snow other than the fact you can’t colour it.

For the past few years UC Hill has been the site of some of the biggest, most attention-grabbing signs of the campaign. With size restrictions, this year was supposed to be a tad more refined. But since we’ve seen around a gazillion centimeters of snow in beautiful London this winter, this was bound to happen. Luckily for Forgione, it seems like the snow is going to be here for, oh I don’t know, ever.

It’s hard not to like the creativity this election season. While the University Students’ Council and Board of Governors took great strides to limit the candidates, the byproduct has been an inspired vigor in trying to find inventive ways to circumvent the rules. Salari’s DC++ advertising campaign is a new one this year and brings Salari into a domain that is entirely unregulated. Forgione’s snow-made sign is another inventive — and incredibly eco-friendly — way to get around some of the restrictions on the hill. Basu Roy has Rick McGhee wearing his shirt so he must be doing something right.

Possible problems? Well, Forgione’s snow-scape is incredibly susceptible to vandalism. Or just wind blowing the snow around. Or a flock of Canadian geese setting up shop in the area and using it as their own personal outhouse.

Yeah, probably the geese.

The surprisingly large Basu Roy contingent

It was good to see David Basu Roy’s camp out in full force at The Spoke Monday afternoon for a coffee house event. Basu Roy actually has a fairly sizable team when they all turn out to something, one that can rival Forgione’s blue-shirted followers. The problem is that presence hasn’t always extended to the UCC lately, where Forgione’s team is constantly buzzing around. Maybe Basu Roy’s campaign philosophy simply isn’t as aggressive as Forgione’s. Or maybe his campaign team is more spread out across campus, whereas Forgione’s seems to hub around the UCC. But the number of green shirts in The Spoke Monday was startling.

Basu Roy has the tools to run a smooth campaign like Forgione’s. Maybe now that he’s past the growing pains of the first week, we’ll really see him come on strong. Then again, as Salari begins to surge after launching his campaign late and Forgione continues to stay the course of being everywhere, Basu Roy may need to do something big before next week to reassert his presence in the race.

It’s a dance dance revolution

I’ve already committed my vote to my man Matt Ryan who is going to make just a fantastic USC President.

But if I wasn’t backing MR. Western I’d have to think long and hard about Andrew Forgione who last night dropped a #Forgibomb of information on his website, tackling an issue that is incredibly close to my heart.

Forgione goes on for 500 words or so, reiterating his support of clubs at Western and his desire to make it easier for clubs to book rooms, plan events and do other clubby things. Big whoop.

But then he makes freakin’ history:

“Plus, I’m sure we would all love it if the dance clubs and various groups that use the UCC space to practice whatever they may be practicing for, had their own private area to practice and rehearse without anyone impeding them.”

Wah-bam!

I know what Forgione meant to say was ‘the dance clubs that use UCC space to get in everyone’s way with their pointless body gyrations’ — but it’s all good. The point is, he plans on expelling them from the UCC permanently, hopefully to some sort of island somewhere with no escape. That, or an eternity of the Monday morning shift cleaning the washrooms in Saugeen would also be accepted.

Listen, if dancing is your thing that’s great. I think that’s fan-freakin-tastic. I understand that the USC hasn’t provided you with the necessary space to shake your assorted grove thangs, ba-donk-a-donks and the like. It’s a crying shame.

But getting to where I’m going is my thing. And most nights in the UCC I can’t do it because you’re grinding all up on each other all over the place. I urge whoever is elected — likely Matt Ryan — to put an end to this and provide these assorted dance crews, units and posses with space that doesn’t double as a main walking artery in the campus’ community centre.

I literally can’t wait for the dance troupe outrage in the comments section.

Odd and Ends

• A pair of letter writers penned some pretty good critiques of the presidential candidates in our opinions section yesterday, including one individual who is fed up of frivolous videos that have “nothing to do with anything the candidate will do to help students.” And another who keenly noticed that “as long as this whole election process continues to be a popularity contest where name recognition rules, the results won’t change.”
• Not sure what Senators do? Yeah me neither but they sure do sound important. Want a crash course? You could read this incredibly informative article written on the topic from the Gazette a couple years back. Or you could stroll down to the Huron Student Activiteis Centre Thursday afternoon at 3:00 where three Senator-at-Large candidates will be hosting a discussion session on the position they’re vying to hold. Take the opportunity and go learn about whatever it is that they do.
• There will be more videos — whether you like it or not. Omid Salari has another video or two coming down the pipe. Andrew Forgione will certainly release something. And the Big Purple Couch will be coming out with a video on trail sort of thing, where they make fun of the candidates videos, which is kind of like shooting fish in a teacup. Hilarity may or may not ensure.
• For a more, um, friendly take on the USC elections period, I have to recommend my man Pat Searle who continues to hit it out of the park with his running stream of elections coverage over at Fuss on the Bus. He was motoring around campus last week filming a USC elections special edition of his internet senatorial talk show — I guess our invitation was lost in the mail… — which we expect to see sometime later this week.
• The official USC elections website was updated recently with a new video and a bunch of information you got from the Gazette last week. It’s alright, I guess. I like the elections committee, they’re good people. But they’re not exactly “your number one non-partisan elections news source” as they’ve been advertising themselves. Why not? Because the only information you’re going to get from their website is pictures of the candidates, their campaign videos and links to their social media. Never mind the fact the Gazette has been publishing numerous in-depth articles from the campaign trail daily and leading the way on Twitter and online. Good thing no one votes in this thing, eh?
• Let me end by saying that it is an absolutely crock of dung that the presidential candidates have been banished to the basement of the UCC this week so that we can sell trashy posters in the UCC atrium. This is as relevant as the USC gets all year and we’re going to shove them out of the most highly-traveled artery on campus for a poster sale? Could we not have bought our Hangover movie posters some other week?

Omid++

Didn’t take long for us to get our hands on the first official screen shot of Omid Salari’s DC++ campaign. DC++, for those who don’t know, is an online file sharing  network used by most students at Western’s residences. It’s like LimeWire, the former Napster or Torrents but incredibly faster because it runs on a local area connection in the residences.

As promised, Salari has overtaken the title bar and the top of the chat screen with a ringing endorsement from the DC++ team. Salari apparently paid somewhere from $180-$200 for the exclusive rights to advertise on DC++.

A lot of first-years who normally would not be involved in the USC elections are going to be seeing his message every time they open their DC++ browser and if even a handful of them end up voting for Salari it has to be seen as a win. No other candidate can boast this kind of constant access to the university’s large crop of first year students.

The only issue for Salari is whether this is in violation of some vague portion of By-Law 2. The legality of DC++ is questionable. We’ll see how it shakes out but if Salari pulls this off without penalty it will be pretty huge for USC campaigning for years to come.

Day eight — Dropping the gloves

No extended intro today, folks. There’s just too much going on. We’ve got something nice to say about Huron, some never-before-seen campaigning from Omid Salari, a demerit point update and a couple other things as well. This blog is scraping 1,600 words and I’ve already pushed 700 more words to tomorrow’s entry. So let’s just dive in, shall we.

Sometimes dreams do come true.

Just a day after I griped about the lack of actual debate at the University Students’ Council debates, along comes the best news this campaign has yet to see.

Alright that’s a bit much. But my man Adam Fearnall — the president of the Huron University Students’ Council — did inform me that Huron will be hosting a debate this Thursday night, moderated by none other than former USC Vice President University Affairs Dan Moulton.

I won’t even make a bad joke here. This is really, really awesome.

While we always back the Gazette’s own Mike Hayes who did a fine job moderating Saturday’s debate, Moulton is also an excellent choice of moderator. Moulton knows the inner-workings of the USC having served on the board, he knows campaigns having run Emily Rowe’s successful presidential bid and he knows how to moderate a good debate having served as the speaker of Huron’s council.

But the biggest win here is the fact that the candidates will get to actually, you know, talk to each other and challenge one another on issues. It’s a novel idea, I know. But I think it could just work. Here’s the format:

-2 Open Questions from Moderator

- Pointed Questions from the Moderator

- Open Discussion Amongst Candidates

- Audience Questions

-A debate winner will be declared.

Personally, I don’t really need someone to be declared the winner of the debate. I’m pretty sure the audience members can make their own judgments and this shouldn’t be about winning or losing. No one’s opinions or views on issues are right or wrong — it’s politics. Declaring a winner or loser is extremely subjective and not really necessary to the political process.

But we’re going to get an actual debate, so we’ll just ignore that part and enjoy the rest of it which should be quite good. It’ll be really fun to watch the candidates actually take each other on topics and try to refute each other’s arguments.

Major, major props to Huron for making this happen. I cannot wait to see how this plays out.

So how’s this for creative campaigning.

Omid Salari, always keeping an eye out for an innovative campaign technique, has purchased the exclusive rights to advertise on DC++, the Western residence file sharing network.

Wait — what?

Yep, for the first time ever in USC elections history, a candidate has purchased the rights to advertise on an online file sharing service. Needless to say, this is not covered in By-Law 2 because no one has been crazy enough to think of it yet.

Salari apparently paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $180-$200 for the exclusive rights to DC++ and his advertising campaign on the service is said to include popup messages, hourly chat updates and an endorsement on the title bar.

Here at Blog the Vote we don’t endorse the illegal pirating of awesome, totally free digital content. But anyone who has lived in residence at Western knows just how much time is spent on this service, downloading music, movies, television shows and the like.

Advertising on DC++ is an incomparable method of reaching first-year students who are probably the most easily swayed of voters considering they’re unlikely to have ties on the USC. If every first-year student gets an engaging message from Omid Salari every time they open their DC++ it could be a seriously effective campaign tool for the presidential candidate.

But really, no one is entirely sure just how many first-years vote. According to Andrew Forgione, who I spoke to about this yesterday, statistics aren’t kept as to the divide in voters by year or faculty. So it’s really a gamble for Salari. It could pay off tremendously if he can mobilize first years. Of course, if first years are as docile, uninformed and apathetic as most think they are, it could be a colossal waste of money.

I’m not in residence so I can’t see Salari’s advertising, but if anyone does, please forward it our way so we can show the rest of campus what he’s up to.

A brief demerit update

Although Chief Returning Officer Adam Smith is not talking about the demerit situation due to a commitment to confidentiality, Blog the Vote rolled up its sleeves and did a little digging. Here’s what we found.

According to the man himself, Andrew Forgione — assessed four points for pre-campaigning — fell victim to an inexperienced team member. Prior to the campaign period, Forgione went to speak to the Chinese Students’ Association about the USC and did not mention his bid for the presidency. However, once he left the meeting, a member of his campaign team who was unfamiliar with By-Law 2 encouraged members of the club to vote for Forgione. Thus, the four point penalty. Forgione actually got off pretty easy as his penalty was reduced from 10 points to just four.

Basu Roy, on the other hand, has been assessed a much harsher penalty of 15 points for printing and posting un-approved campaign materials. According to his campaign team, he was reprimanded for using purple in his signage and the word ‘damn.’ Also according to his campaign team, Basu Roy asked InPrint to print the posters in black and white, but they instead printed them in colour. Basu Roy then put the posters up, purple and all, in the engineering building. According to his campaign team, Basu Roy is currently appealing the penalty.

In my books, Forgione should have gotten a little more for his indiscretion and Basu Roy should have gotten a little less. If Forgione is going to operate with such a vast team he should be held responsible for all of their actions. It’s his fault for not better educating his troops and he’s informed me that since the indiscretion his team has had a meeting to go over the dos and don’ts of the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Basu Roy clearly broke the rules and deserved to be punished but simply having the colour purple on his campaign sign doesn’t really warrant 15 points to me. But Smith has a point. Rules is rules — you gotta play by ‘em.

To read more on the demerits, check out our article on the situation from today’s paper.

Something I could do without

CHRW’s minute to win it went down in the UCC Atrium Monday afternoon. All three presidential candidates showed up and did their thing. Notable performances include Forgione busting out a freestyle rap and Salari taking his shirt off and touching his nipples. No I’m not kidding.

Listen, stepping out of your comfort zone and showing a little bit of personality with a rap is one thing. It’s silly but it doesn’t exactly devalue the electoral process, which is already pretty high school as it is. But not even in high school would someone do what Salari did in front of a CHRW camera on Monday. Salari’s striptease didn’t just border on distasteful, it crossed a line for me.

I like Salari’s willingness to try new things. I like that he can turn a debate on its head with powerful rhetoric. I like that he’s not afraid to display his affable uniqueness. But what exactly does taking off your shirt and touching your nipples accomplish other than shock value? Some of Salari’s ideas are innovative and great. But it seems like every so often he slips in one that just doesn’t make any sense. Maybe if he had a campaign team, someone could edit his more bizarre ideas.

The CHRW performance was completely adverse to Salari’s campaign promise to “not ____ around.” Simply put — it was silly, pointless and uncalled for.

And another thing

I know CHRW was excited about the minute to win it project and the elections committee advertised it to candidates heavily, pitching it at every all candidates meeting and including it on campaign literature. But the turnout Monday was less than stellar with only a handful of candidates making use of the opportunity.

Their loss, I suppose. I don’t really know why the candidates wouldn’t use this medium as a way to get their names out there. It sure as hell ain’t going to happen in this space.

But the real issue here is that the candidates are just as apathetic about all of this as the students. When your candidates can’t be bothered to spare a single minute of their day for some free publicity and advertising on campus media, something is seriously wrong. Voter apathy is one thing. But how can you expect voters to get interested in a race if the candidates show little to no interest themselves?

Why are there only a handful of councilors and senators who actually take the extra step to truly engage students?

Maybe Gazette managing editor Mike Hayes it right. Maybe it’s time to shrink this council so that only those who are truly interested in being active student politicians can win. Maybe it’s time to start thinking quality over quantity.

3:18 a.m. UPDATE: Ah man, this ruins my strong ending but what’re ya gonna do because we’ve got David Basu Roy’s campaign video. It’s really a roller coaster of emotions and ends in what looks to be a rather painful crowd hoist for ol’ elastic legs Dave. Unfortunately, the banana suit does not make an appearance.

8:53 a.m. UPDATE: And for those of you who are more hip hop inclined, Omid Salari has released a “USC gangsta rap” video. Rapping locations include a chair, a hallway and even a river. Andrew Forgione also utilized the increasingly popular urban musical phenomenon of rap to get his message across on Monday at CHRW’s minute to win it. So clearly the USC thinks that’s what you kids are into these days.

Day Seven — Debaters gonna debate

The moment Mike Tithecott learned he would be the next USC president. His father is on the far right in the green scarf.

I met Andrew Forgione’s mom on Friday.

It’s easy to forget in all of the craziness surrounding the University Students’ Council elections that these candidates are just real people with moms and dads and problems of their own.

I think it’s a byproduct of the campaign’s ridiculous branding — which is unfortunately 100 per cent necessary to winning this thing — that we don’t really think of Forgione and his colleagues Omid Salari and David Basu Roy as having lives outside of the race. When all you see is a smiling face, a colour scheme, a polished website, an overtly friendly twitter feed and symbolic logo, you forget that just a week ago these same folks were walking around campus just like you. Marching class-to-class, barely recognizable amidst the sea of Western students.

Meeting Forgione’s mom actually reminded me of Mike Tithecott’s dad who was somewhat of a fixture during his son’s ultimately successful campaign for USC president last year. The moment immediately after Tithecott was named president, when him and his father embraced each other crying, was probably one of the more powerful, emotional moments a USC election has ever seen. It went mostly unreported but anyone who was there knows just how affecting the moment was. I certainly haven’t forgotten it.

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone soft. It’s just moments like those that really give you perspective on the zaniness that is USC Elections at Western. The moment I had to talk to Mrs. Forgione on Friday was a small one. But a really nice one at the same time.

The debate over debate in the debates

As usual, the Gazette is driving the discourse when it comes to Western and the USC, this time by pointing out, justly I might add, that this year’s debates so far haven’t featured any actual debate.

Former USC presidential candidate Andrew Beach weighed in. Quickly followed by Omid Salari himself. We also heard from current senator and Fuss on the Buser Pat Searle.

For me, the USC debates are really just question and answer sessions. And while it’s nice to hear the candidates elaborate on their platforms and explain how they would handle certain predicaments, it’s frankly played out.

Take Saturday’s presidential debate, for instance, which was attended by approximately five to ten people who weren’t on the USC, campaign team members or campus media. Hey, that was Mike Tithecott’s estimation, not mine. (Mine would have been much lower)

What is the point, I must ask, of wasting four hours on a Saturday afternoon to answer well-formed questions before a crowd of decided voters? The actual constituents are voting with their butts by not showing up and telling everyone involved “hey! Listen to us! We don’t care!”

Saturday afternoon, I would imagine, is a prime time to hit up one of the university’s residences, canvassing first years who have little knowledge of the USC and getting them involved. You had your best chance of catching them actually in their residences on Saturday afternoon, unlike on weekdays when they could be off at class or, heaven forbid, involved with something extra-curricular on campus.  But instead we did this.

I only stuck it out for the first two hours — I am still a sports writer by day — and as I understand it the questions and answers improved as the event entered its second half. But who, tuning in from home on the internet, would have possibly stuck it out that long to see the candidates challenge each other?

You know my opinion on the motivations behind Saturday’s debate which essentially boiled down to a self-serving USC auditing procedure. Call me blunt, but the harsher thing to say would be that USC genuinely thought campus needed yet another Q and A session with the candidates. On a Saturday morning. For four hours.

Call me crazy, but what I think we need is actual debate sessions on current USC topics. We need to open the floor to the issues that the candidates should be well versed on. The USC’s role in environmentalism, the USC’s retail operations, O-Week, clubs and services, the LTC. I could go on.

We also need to open the floor to students and let them line up and ask questions. Why can’t they be involved in the process? Why do we only debate before councils, the media and people waiting in line to buy a CLT? These are people who are already informed and likely already know who they are going to vote for.

Oh yeah — there’s another problem. The Gazette, CHRW and Big Purple Couch. We’re egotistical maniacs and we use these sessions as a forum to prove how smart we are. Yeah I ‘effin said it.

The debates shouldn’t be about which member of campus media can research and form the most challenging question. We shouldn’t be getting our rocks off by trying to trip up the candidates like we were on Saturday. We should be letting the candidates talk. We should literally just be saying “USC Finances — Go!” and letting the three duke it out.

In the prudent words of Will Ferrell’s Frank the tank: “That’s how you debate!”

Odds and ends

• The folks at Big Purple Couch are obviously wise people. They chose to recruit Matt Ryan, the undoubted front runner in this race and clearly the best man to be president, to help interrogate the presidential hopefuls on stage in The Spoke. MR. Western doesn’t only have a bright future ahead of him as USC president, he apparently has a knack for television as well. You can watch all of the interviews on BPC’s YouTube page.
• Today in videos: Forgione has a recap of his Sunday, which involved talking to the affiliates and watching the Super Bowl while ‘chilling in the sack.’ Whatever that means….  Meanwhile, Salari shares his thoughts on the UWOFA and UWOSA debacles from last year and even throws out the ‘s’ word when it comes to students. Think we can strike over the outrageous price of nachos in The Spoke? Finally, David Basu Roy sits on the ugliest couch on planet earth to talk about his experience in an extremely canned, rehearsed fashion. No, I don’t know why.
• It wouldn’t be a passing day without a pair of USCers earning accolades after doing a minimal amount of work. (I kid!) Zach Valliant has been acclaimed as the new president of MIT and he is joined on council by the MIT’s new USC representative Jess Bronstein. Big ups to both of them, or whatever the MIT hipsters are saying these days. I’m so out of touch.
• I mean, you could have gone to the presidential debate before the Huron University Students’ Council on Sunday. But, really, why would you? What exactly is Huron anyway? Is that one of those new rooms in the basement of the UCC? Also, there’s no reason to attend when Huron president Adam Fearnall tweets every ounce of oxygen expelled from the mouths of the candidates. If you’ve got a couple hours, read up on his timeline.

And this kind of leads me to something that bugs me a bit. I’ve been getting comments at debates such as ‘oh, are you tweeting this?’ ‘Why isn’t one of the official USC media outlets live-tweeting this?’ ‘Andrew Forgione tells me twitter is important. Why don’t you twitter more about what he says?’

Firstly — we do tweet the debates. Every single one of them. If you aren’t following our news team of KaleighAtGazette, MonicaAtGazette, GloriaAtGazette and Cheryl Stone — who works too hard to possibly maintain a twitter account — you’re missing out. They will tell you about the minuscule debate details you surely do not care about.

Secondly, if you’re not a member of the media at Western — you lucky bastard — you are more than welcome to live tweet from a debate. Citizen journalism is great. But at least try to have some neutrality. If you’re praising Forgione’s debate performance from a twitter account that features the candidate’s logo in the profile picture or tweeting choice Basu Roy quotes from his own freakin’ twitter account, it’s not really helping.

Day Five — Demeritocracy

"The three of you are stranded on a desert island -- who do you eat first?"

I actually write this brief intro from the second University Students’ Council presidential “debate.” Not that we expect to have any sort of argument or discussion between the candidates. Heaven forbid. Let’s just make them answer questions about USC policy for four hours. But we’ll have more on that come Monday.

Anyway, it’s not noon yet, so we’re still calling this your morning dose of Blog the Vote.

Bad boys, bad boys

Adam Smith’s uncompromising fist of discipline came raining down on two candidates yesterday — one moreso than another. I know what you’re thinking — throw the damn book at these heartless cheaters. Well let’s just assess what they’re being accused of first.

Firstly, Andrew Forgione was assessed four demerit points for being in violation of By-Law 2 Section 11.01 — dunh dunh dunnnhhhh.

Yeah, I didn’t know what it was either. That’s why we look these things up:

“Candidates may not address executive or general meetings of USC or University recognized organizations prior to the start of campaigning, and must schedule meetings with executive members on their own initiative. The candidate may not solicit votes or support during consultative meetings.”

As it turns out, the crime Forgione has been accused of is “attending a meeting of a University-recognized club and solicit[ing] support” from said club. I don’t know what the club was — my guess is the juggling club — but here at Blog the Vote all suspects are innocent until proven guilty. Which Forgione likely was, but hey — it’s only four points. It’s not like he blew half of his allotted 30 demerit points on one infraction. That’d be awful.

What’s that? Oh… Well this is awkward.

Turns out David Basu Roy has also been accused of some less than exemplary actions over the first four days of the campaign as he was docked 15 points ­— !!! — for what the elections committee is calling a “violation of the rules of fair play for unsanctioned use of USC resources” and a “violation of the rules of campaigning for improper distribution of these campaign materials.”

To my extraordinarily limited and likely mistaken understanding, Basu Roy is being accused of printing unapproved signage at InPrint which registers as a double whammy of campaign indiscretions. Not only did he print an unapproved sign, he did it at a USC printing outlet with student money. Supposedly.

For Basu Roy, these points are near-crippling. He’s now halfway to disqualification from the race and his campaign budget will be lowered by $90. That may not seem like much considering he originally had a $1,500 stipend, but if he had already budgeted to spend most of that money, losing $90 off the top could alter his plans.

The biggest worry for him must be that there are still ten days until voting and a couple small slip ups could find himself disqualified from the race altogether. Basu Roy now has to tread very carefully as he goes forward.

Just to beat folks to the punch, some will make an argument that the USC is making an example out of the outsider Basu Roy. Not so, it says here. From my perspective, Chief Returning Officer Adam Smith has been doing an exemplary job thus far and I’m sure he had legitimate reasons to bring down these penalties.

Of course, I haven’t spoken to either team about the demerits — it’s like four in the morning right now — but I intend to do so at some point in the near future. Certainly they have their own side of the story to tell and I’ll relay that information once I have it.

I told you Friday would be fun.

We had a #forgibomb. No explanation needed here. But remember when these campaign videos at least tried to have a message or purpose?

We had Salari-mania with the two-time USC speaker unveiling his website, twitter account, intimidating video and ultimately failed University College hill sign.

We had this light, folksy tune from David Basu Roy which is best listened to while wearing hemp and hackin’ a bit of sack.

It’s not surprising. All three candidates likely targeted this day to do something. It’s the end of the week and just long enough into the campaign period that folks are starting to lose interest, assuming they had any to begin with. It also gives them the weekend to regroup and plan something for next week.

And next week should be a hell of a week. I hear Salari has more than a half dozen videos coming down the pipe. Basu Roy told me yesterday that he was putting the finishing touches on his official campaign video. And Forgione’s camp will surely be active as they have been for the entire campaign period.

I’ll say this — for a race that could have been very dull, we’ve had our fair share of entertainment. Major props go out to all the candidates for keeping things interesting so we at the Gazette can do silly things like this.

Council felt like throwing some meat on the grill on Saturday

As I griped about earlier, heaven forbid we let these candidates actually debate or discuss issues directly with each other. Let’s forget that and ask them hypothetical questions about USC policy for four hours, shall we? Sounds good.

That’s essentially what Saturday morning’s presidential debate at council chambers will be. Gazette managing editor Mike Hayes has been furiously doing research all week, meeting with each current member of the USC board to brainstorm the most challenging, wit-testing queries known to man.

I don’t know why you would ever go to this — it’s at 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday for chrissakes — but for those masochists who do plan on attending, I will warn you that it will be a marathon. Candidates will be grilled on each of the six USC executive portfolios for at least 30-40 minutes apiece. A little quick math and you’re looking at a minimum of three hours. Make sure to bring extra rations and that your loved ones know you are okay.

To be serious for just a fleeting moment here, this grill session is, in my opinion, simply a way for the USC to ensure the potential candidates have done their homework when it comes to Western’s student union. It’s scheduled on a Saturday morning for a reason — you’re not supposed to go. It’s an auditing procedure for the USC who want to make sure there aren’t any Marshall Goldfarbs who can nearly win the election without knowing the first thing about how the USC operates. I don’t disagree with holding the “debate” and I certainly understand the USC’s motivation for creating it this year. I just want to call a spade a spade.

#Forgibombed

While some Western students were getting a different kind of bombed Friday evening, I was busy being Forgibombed.

Don’t know what I mean? Then go ahead and trigger the bomb yourself.

“I don’t mess around”

So it has been the day of Omid Salari on Friday, as the elusive third candidate for University Students’ Council president emerged from the forest to launch his campaign. His website is up, his twitter is running and his air borne University College hill sign was deployed. Of course, the hazardous winds of London quickly did it in but Salari is pledging to replace the sign sometime soon.

All three candidates were canvassing in the UCC, with Forgione’s team by far the most present. Basu Roy and his smaller legion of supporters were also there. And, of course, there was Salari — with no team, no campaign shirt and no giveaway, just talking to voters. He pledged to run as a person and not a team and if Friday is any indication that’s what he’ll continue to do. When we asked him who his campaign manager was earlier this week he listed himself, which may explain why he has not been as present on the campaign trail as Forgione or Basu Roy. He’s doing two jobs. It could be campaign suicide to spread himself so thin but his message is certainly clear.

And then there’s this campaign video which he released Friday afternoon — vulgarities and all. Blog the Vote will reserve judgment until the weekend. But surely you folks have a couple pennies of your own.

The comments section is all yours.

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…

Day Three — A little counselling

Ugh.

So it was a Rick night last night. Let’s all just keep that in mind as we peruse the certainly mistake-laden array I have for you to read this morning.

Snow-meh-geddon

The weather was a bit of an issue for the candidate on Wednesday, with the wind and snow wiping out Andrew Forgione’s UC Hill sign. It was down for most of the day but was resurrected in the afternoon.  Andrew Basu Roy’s sign had a bit more structural integrity, withstanding the storm and living to stand there idly another day. HIs wood-based sign is a bit sturdier and weighed down with sandbags. Basu Roy’s King’s sign, however, fell victim to the storm.

It really says something about Wednesday’s proceedings that this is one of the more interesting things I have to write about this morning.

Omid or omit?

Had a chance to chat with the mystery man Omid Salari Wednesday afternoon. He’s doing just fine and he thanks you for asking. When is his campaign going to kick off, you ask?

“I’ll launch my campaign whenever I damn well please.”

Well then — there you have it.

Hard to deny, Salari has kind of made himself into a talking point by virtue of his absence. It isn’t helping him reach out to voters who aren’t familiar with the candidates, but within those select few who are informed, Salari is a popular topic. There’s much anticipation for what his campaign will include and to his credit Salari says the anticipation is warranted.

An advantage to waiting this long is that now Salari will get to dictate his own pace. What may have hurt Basu Roy is that his campaign was instantly compared to Forgione’s since they both launched on the same day. Forgione has been meticulously planning his campaign for months. It would have been extraordinarily tough for a candidate to compare to what he’s done with campus presence, branding and especially social media. But whenever Salari decides to grace us with his campaign, he will have the advantage of letting his introduction to the race stand alone.

He wants to blow the lid off this thing and maybe he will. Until he decides to make a move, we’ll just have to wait.

Trail mix

It was a relatively quiet day of campaigning Wednesday, with the candidates fairly spread out across campus. The three came together for a debate before the Ivey council and all three made an appearance at the Black Students Association’s Black History Month ceremonies in the UCC. But otherwise they were fairly dispersed, likely boning up on their USC policy ahead of Wednesday’s night’s council debate. Oh yeah, speaking of that…

The council debate

So that happened.

As a candidate, you can go to the Ivey council or the science council and cruise through a debate. But when you’re going in front of the USC, you know there’s dozens of people in that room out for blood.

Certainly some candidates deal with it better than others. And even more certainly, none of us who were sitting in the crowd would have liked to be sitting where those three were perched for nearly three hours. Surely it’s one of the tougher tasks of this process.

But this trio knew what they were signing up for.

Forgione was polished as usual. He didn’t make any glaring mistakes but he also didn’t take any risks or leave a serious mark. We know that will be what defines him in this race — stay the course and don’t sway too far to any side. Just walk the line. It’s a campaign-to-win race and Forgione knows that. Until one of the other candidates makes some noise, Forgione is pretty safe staying the course.

Basu Roy was definitely grilled harder than the other two, which he must have expected considering his outsider status. Despite representing every single undergraduate student at Western, the USC is an incredibly insular arena. If you don’t walk like them, talk like them and BBM gossip like them, you’re going to end up ostracized. That’s Basu Roy’s reality at the moment and until he can bring some undeniable proof of his platform’s feasibility to the table, his campaign will continue to be constantly challenged.

And that Salari kid didn’t really make much of a mark.

…

Oh wait, was he the guy repeatedly swearing, lofting backhanded criticisms toward his colleagues and challenging members of council to ask him about particular aspects of his candidacy? Well that was something, wasn’t it?

It’s undeniable that Salari is truly in his element when he’s speaking in front of a crowd. He can’t help but let his personality shine through and while it certainly must alienate a large segment of the audience, there must be a good number of folks who appreciate his honest, aggressive and, at times, crude assessment of the USC.

The thing about Salari is he has two sides to his rhetoric. There’s good Salari — which comes out when he’s undeniably passionate about an issue and gives a blunt, no-nonsense assessment of the topic. But there’s also bad Salari who throws in a ‘sucka’ or ‘wuddup’ at the end of his statements and punctuates everything with an Eminem-inspired hand gesture.

Obviously everyone has their good and bad side and maybe Salari is the kind of guy who just can’t help but be himself. But it’s undeniable that the best answers he gives come from good Salari.

This is politics, after all. Who has ever won an election by being completely genuine?

Drive-by Opinion: David Basu Roy’s website

Oh how I love ths screen grab. Got a good caption for it? We'd love to hear it in the comments

I’m trying not to paint David Basu Roy as an environmental candidate.

He’s obviously passionate about it, but he’s got a lot more going for him than that and I really like some of the things he’s had to say to me about not running on a one-note platform. He said he wants to raise the issue of environmentalism and see what students want to do about it instead of telling them what they should be doing about it. He assured me he wanted to stray from green-washing everything. I admire that strategy.

But then he just had to go and make his campaign colour green. C’mon Dave — work with me here.

But I kid. For its overwhelming greenness, Basu Roy’s website doesn’t really mention environmentalism anywhere. It’s mostly about Basu Roy.

He seems like an interesting dude but the website relies a little too heavily on the personal anecdotes for me. I don’t care what kind of kooky stuff you get up to in your spare time, I’m looking to elect the best person to be USC President.

But taking the personal angle might be a coy move considering the front runner Andrew Forgone has a fantastically polished campaign but has trouble letting his personality shine through. Encouraging voters to get to know him on a personal level could work for Basu Roy. Of course, that’s probably the most optimistic thing I’ve ever written.

Basu Roy’s platform takes a much more in-depth approach than Forgione’s but overall it’s really more about his philosophy than a list of tangible things he will accomplish. That’s fine and all, but students usually want to be promised something frivolous like two-ply toilet paper or a Wine Rack in the UCC, which both totally happened, by the way.

Basu Roy will definitely face some questions about how he’ll pay for a number of his ideas. But he’s an engineer so surely he’s done his research and can defend his platform’s feasibility.

Meanwhile, Basu Roy’s current campaign video is, if nothing else, unique. He spends much of the 30 seconds dressed in a banana suit, removing it only to pay a visit to fine urban outfitter Roots and lead a pack of his dancing buddies up UC Hill. Thanks for inspiring this craziness, Emily Rowe. Appreciate it.

It’s all more than a little bit confusing but I guess we’ll have to wait for Basu Roy’s next video to have our burning questions answered. Forgione got it right, just give the people what they want — quick cuts, catchy music, recognizable faces and nothing to think about.

I’m not sure how the banana suit fits into Basu Roy’s campaign, which he assured voters on Tuesday was not about gimmicks. He mentions a banana costume casually in his platform, but that’s about it.

But so far Basu Roy’s efforts have really been a mish mash of ideas, so who knows where he’s going with this. Compared to Forgione’s uber-organized early campaigning — which is also a product of him having seemingly unlimited resources — it looks like Basu Roy is lagging behind. But compared to Omid Salari’s campaign thus far — see:  nothing — he ain’t doing so bad.

Of course, Basu Roy was never about being a brand like Forgione is. He’s an ideas guy and that should shine through during debates. Whether his message will resonate with students remains to be seen, but don’t expect Basu Roy’s campaign to stray too far from its current pace. He’s carving out a niche in the middle of Forgione’s uber-polish and Salari’s out-there-ness. It’s a good place to be.

Day Two — Making an ass of ourselves

Nyssa Kuwahara/Gazette

How about that weather, eh? Knew I shouldn’t have turned down that full scholarship to the University of Hawaii…

If you so choose to brave the wintery abyss that is London on Wednesday — the Weather Network is only calling for 30 cm of snow by midday Tuesday, NBD — you will likely find the presidential candidates back in the UCC Atrium. They’ll also be summoned before council Wednesday night for a debate starting at 7:00 p.m. Councillors quite like to take the piss out of their colleagues who are brave enough to debate before them, so it should be fairly entertaining. If anything, Omid Salari will likely say something controversial. Speaking of that crazy guy…

Where in the world is Omid Salari?

When Salari told me he was going to start his campaign slow, I figured it wasn’t a bad strategy. Why blow your load in the first few days of the campaign, when you can ease your way into it slowly and really turn up the volume as you reach the finish. I know — gross, right?

But I don’t think anyone expected him to be completely non-existent on the first day of campaigning. The most telling symbol was his table in the UCC atrium, which sat empty except for an abandoned toque, while the other campaigns buzzed around it.

Salari is said to be planning something big for the latter part of the campaign, but surely he can ill afford to be MIA for much longer. Some think students don’t really pay attention until the second week anyway. But Monday Tuesday you couldn’t turn around without running into something Forgione. How long can Salari afford to stay silent?

Back that ass up

David Basu Roy probably had a day he’d rather forget on Monday’s opening day of campaigning. And not only because his campaign was overshadowed by the Forgibomb that Andrew Forgione and his team dropped on UWO campus and the internet.

Basu Roy learned some of his posters had been banned from King’s because they featured the candidate wearing his birthday suit. (major props for the strategic placement of the Gazette, however) Basu Roy was also informed that he would have to remove the word ‘ass’ from his campaign materials which bill him as ‘Direct, Badass and Rooted.’ Basu Roy took to the airwaves of CHRW 94.9 to defend his campaign slogan:

“I was surprised by this but they were very explicit about the fact that any curse words cannot be used on any posters of any kind. […] I think it’s actually given me a lot of momentum for an initiative I’m very passionate about which is being subjective and not being overbearingly politically correct with students.”

From our humble perspective at the Gazette, we don’t give a darn what words these forkin’ candidates use on their shoot. We’re all adults here and taking a stroll around campus on any given day of the year will lead to overhearing much worse terminology than ‘ass.’ And spending an evening at one of the fine establishments that London’s Richmond Row has to offer is often the equivalent of attending a live taping of group pornography. So elections committee — let’s just cool it on the uber political correctness before one of the candidates drops a c-bomb in order to make a point.

Where I screwed up

Something tells me this will be a recurring feature on this blog and maybe I’m breaking the first rule of journalism by admitting I was wrong. But screw it — I’m a sports writer covering student politics. Sue me.

So here are a couple things I made a mess of yesterday. I misinterpreted the short, bullet-pointed section of Andrew Forgione’s website labeled “Platform” as being his actual platform. In fact, this was simply an overview of his full platform which can be found here. Also, on this blog I made it seem that Forgione’s campaign song was by Barbara Streisand — really not my kind of music — and not just a song called “Barbra Streisand” by something called Duck Sauce.

But Barbara Streisand is still cool in my books — so that last one I can live with.

Odds and Ends

• Gazette managing editor and presidential debate master moderator Mike Hayes checks in with this column, calling for the USC to be shrunk considerably.
• Presidential candidate David Basu Roy officially released his platform, which can be perused here.
• Pat Searle — the driving force behind Fuss on the Bus and friend of the blog — accumulated all of the USC campaign videos from the last four years into one neat, tidy list. Rumour has it, if you watch all of them in a row you only lose about a pint of blood through your ears.
• Presidential candidate Andrew Forgione — who has a frickin’ ring tone now, by the way — checks in with his first video blog, borrowing my Forgibomb quip from yesterday’s Blog the Vote.
• Congratulations are in order for a trio of USCers who will get to kick up their feet, sip champagne and watch the rest of the mess that is campaign season from on high. Rebecca Watson was acclaimed as an arts and humanities senator, while Erin Uberig and Brent Duncan were both acclaimed as social science/FIMS senators. So congratulations on beating no one, people I’ve never heard of. (C’mon, I kid!) Pat Searle has a much more informative, friendly and, frankly, better take on the trio over at Fuss on the Bus.
• UPDATE: Feb 2, 1:01 p.m: Fuss on the Bus more than ably covered this days ago, but by popular demand we’ll go ahead and steal some more of their fine reporting. Andrew Shaw is the new Arts and Humanities president and Eric Mercer is the new Ivey HBAA president. Congratulations to those two for earning jobs no one else wanted. Before you comment, you had to know I was going to take a shot there.

Day One — Dropping the Forgibomb

We'd like Forgione more if he didn't encourage those god damn dancers in the UCC.

Insert obligatory race starting cliché here!

That’s right, just 336 fleeting hours until we can vote on this thing and all go home for a merciful reading week. And with somewhere around 40 cm of snow forecast for London between now and Thursday, reading week can’t come soon enough.

As you probably know by now because it was reported first at Blog the Vote, our candidates for University Students’ Council president are David Basu Roy, Andrew Forgione and Omid Salari.

If you were walking down University College hill late Monday night ­like I was, you would have seen both Basu Roy and Forgione’s teams scrambling to erect their UC Hill signs, limited this year by size meaning they both look rather similar aesthetically. Basu Roy’s sign takes the hip hop inspired, graffiti approach, while Forgione’s is a double-sided effort which features ‘Forgione for president’ on one side and ‘For You Forgione’ — or something like that, it was late — on the other.

Salari’s UC Hill sign has yet to make an appearance, although rumour has it we won’t be looking forward to it but looking up instead.

Anyway, some stuff to chew on for the first morning of the 2011 USC elections campaign season.

Some light reading

Screw it ­— I’m linking my own damn column. Maybe if some other publication on campus or, hell, even off campus bothered to cover this thing I’d be able to link to them. But they don’t and I can’t. So here you are, stuck with my drivel from today’s paper where I briefly give my take on the three candidates, complete with quotes from the men themselves, explaining what they hope to do over the next two weeks.

“As far as bad omens go, the fact ElectionsNet refused to work at Monday night’s all candidates meeting is up there. You could argue it’s important to have the main web portal for information on the University Students’ Council election functioning on the eve of the campaign. But then again, it seems like this won’t be your ordinary race. Thus, “we can only go up from here” is the official motto as the 2011 campaign season opens today across campus.”

We also have a more traditional candidate listing available, including some weirdly lit pictures of the candidates, surface-scraping facts on their involvement with the USC and around campus, and the question on everyone’s mind — what is their favourite London bar? I may work here, but I’m with commenter James Mitchell on this one — why would anyone care about that?

For-gee-oh-knee

Geez, that Andrew Forgione. What a keener!

While his competition was off doing who knows what, USC presidential candidate Andrew Forgione launched a full out assault on the internet at approximately 12:02 Tuesday morning, with a nifty website, a catchy campaign video and a freakin’ Forgibomb on Twitter.

The website is slick, easy-to-navigate and features a variety of images of Forgione standing around looking content. There’s never enough text on a page to make things intimidating for your typically short-attention-spanned Western student and there’s even a blog which hopefully Forgione can update more frequently than some past candidates managed to.

Forgione also makes a bold choice with his platform, going for the bare bones, bullet point approach instead of the longer, full-sentenced strategy that many USC presidential candidates often opt for. It’s smart, considering most Western students don’t bother with sentences longer than 10 words. And it will likely resonate very well with a student body sick of shoddy cell phone service, short-lasting cell phone batteries that prohibit them from calling cabs at the UCC and other cell phone related issues.

The campaign video also hits all the right marks, featuring a diverse cast of Westerners from a variety of corners of campus, haphazardly strewn together with quick cuts and upbeat techno music from Barbara Streisand of all people. I won’t lie — it’s going to be a pretty popular video

But what does it tell you about Forgione?

He dances! He goes to class! He chums it up on concrete beach! His campaign manager takes the Brescia Bus! He sheepishly brushes off the paper airplanes that people throw in his face!

This is light hearted campaign fare at its finest. Forgione has clearly learned from the standout campaign videos of years past — See Rowe, Emily and Hyland, Matt — and improved on them, taking campaign videoing to the proverbial next level.

I must admit, the video even found a soft spot with me when it briefly featured timeless Western Mustangs football equipment manager Mark Carmody. Maybe that was the influence of Forgione’s campaign manager Tamer Abdalla, a diehard Mustangs fan, but it certainly didn’t go unnoticed.

Some scoffed when I named Forgione the front runner well before nominations even closed, but after this internet assault, how can you disagree? Omid Salari’s website still features his run for communications officer in March, 2010. Meanwhile, David Basu Roy’s website simply bills itself as the “future home of something quite cool.”

In the early hours of this campaign, Forgione is setting the pace.

UPDATE: Not 14 seconds after I published this, David Basu Roy’s website went live including a lighthearted YouTube video of his own. I guess he’s the only other insomniac at Western up at 3:30 in the morning. We’ll cover both his website and the video at Blog the Vote sometime Tuesday errr Wednesday. —AZ