The votes are in, and it’s official: You have all screwed yourselves.
I say “yourselves” because I’m graduating, and while I truly do care about the future of Ohio State students, my disbelief has me apathetic to what the voters have just subjected themselves to.
For the past three years, Undergraduate Student Government has gone under a major image overhaul under presidents Eddie Pauline and Mike Goodman. This image, however, did not just include the popular belief that the student government was ineffective – prior to Pauline’s first term of office, the face of USG was scarred by one of the most scandalous presidents in its history.
In December of 2001, Former USG President Robert “B.J.” Schuerger was a major part of a scandal involving the use of student government funds for he and a contingent of USG members to go for a limo-chauffuered dinner at Mitchell’s Steak House.
Worse yet was on Feb. 5, 2001, a story ran in The Lantern which said that an investigation was going to be conducted concerning a misuse of USG funds involving the trip to Mitchell’s. However, a majority of the student population was unable to read that story, as USG members went around campus trying to steal every copy of The Lantern – guilty conscience, much?
After a formal apology to The Lantern and B.J.’s departure, USG would run damage control for the next three years, trying desperately to save face and once again, if nothing else, convince the undergraduate students and The Lantern not every president was B.J., and USG was more than just overly ambitious political-heads out to do nothing but bolster their resumes.
To an extent, the undergraduates seemed to warm up to USG. By last year’s election, students (mostly females) were voting for the Goodman/Sasso ticket because Frank Sasso was, and I quote, “Hot.”
The crimes of USG seemed to be behind them.
But now the mistakes of the past have come back to haunt us.
What many people were either unaware of or simply didn’t care about was that Schuerger was rumored to have been in scandals back in Buckeye Boys State, a mock government in which high schoolers filled various positions in Ohio’s political system. So when Schuerger did come into office, it wasn’t a surprise to those who had heard these rumors when B.J. got himself into collegiate-level trouble.
And you have just elected someone who has gone through a major scandal already – in his own USG campaign.
Aftab Pureval’s name was plastered all over campus a week before campaigning season began. Not as a USG candidate, but as a “presenter” of Red Wanting Blue.
The day I saw those posters up, I smelled a rat.
And apparently others did, too, as eventually Pureval would be put under the Elections Governance Board microscope over allegations of early campaigning. The EGB advised the USG Judicial Panel to force Pureval’s team to include the cost of the concert in its budget, which would have led to an immediate disqualification. The Judicial Panel concurred, but Pat Hall of Judicial Affairs overruled this, saying that while the ad was early campaigning, it was not intentional.
This makes sense. Someone as high-key as Pureval earned a name size almost rivaling the band in those posters. Obviously not intentional.
Call my response pedestrian, but “yeah, right.” Everyone and their brother knows that USG campaigning boils down to who can get his or her name out to the most people. A poster does not need to say “USG, President, Vote” – anything. You plaster a name everywhere, and students will vote for that person because they’ve heard of him – especially if after a week of seeing a name in one form they then see it connected to a USG campaign.
Pureval then proceeded to carry out a mass chalking on the day the Judicial Panel had ordered him to cease because an appeal he had filed had not yet gone through – Pat Hall had extended the ruling by one day, again superceding the Judicial Panel.
Even after the deadline had passed, pro-Pureval e-mails filled campus inboxes – though not illegal, certainly against the spirit of the ruling against him. Campaigning is campaigning is campaigning.
In the meanwhile, the other three campaign teams’ net violations included turning in papers late and accidentally supporting the wrong senatorial candidate.
So The Lantern made its endorsement, sat back and hoped the student population would be smart enough to vote for someone who demonstrated both honesty and potential for USG.
Pureval has shown what many I’ve talked to can be considered blatant shadiness, then claimed he could lower tuition.
And I can heal lepers with my hands.
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m going to really, really miss Pauline and Goodman. At least they made USG look clean.
I’ll miss you all, actually. Again, I’m leaving.
May God have mercy on your new student government.
Kyle Woodley is The Lantern news editor, a senior in journalism and a popular write-in candidate for USG international senator. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
