The SGA presidential debate Wednesday night was hardly a debate. For those who didn’t see it, most of the night was spent with the two tickets agreeing with eachother on virtually every point. Vinny Raimondi must have used the phase “I agree with Matt” a dozen times or more. The only time there was some real contention was when the topic of Boken and the other “festivals” on campus came up, and even there the only dissent was about how to approach polling the students to determine if Boken should be brought back. Both candidates were adamant that it was imperative to glean the student body’s desires prior to funding Boken or another such event. Where they differed was that Matt was staunchly against the idea of polling about bringing Boken back, where it was hard to tell if Vinny was suggesting that the poll he wanted to run would be as open-ended as Matt’s.
So if both of the tickets were essentially in agreement, how can anybody declare a winner? Here’s how. The point was raised that Vinny and his runningmate Jacob are both in what was called by another member of the audience “their typical graduating semester.” Vinny explained that he is staying on another semester to finish his master’s degree, and after a bit of a tiff it came out that Dean Nilsen gave a green-light to his continued involvement. Jacob, on the other hand, would need to be replaced after a single semester as VP if that ticket wins. Setting aside the questions of whether this is truly permissible under the SGA constitution or bylaws, there exist several logistical issues with Vinny and Jacob’s ticket. If elected, Jacob can only serve as VP for a single semester. After that point, there will either need to be an emergency election or an appointment – either way, the student body isn’t getting the elected VP for the full duration of the year. According to Vinny Wednesday night, he will be finishing his master’s degree in the fall, and therefore the spring 2017 semester neither the previous President nor Vice President will be around to provide any kind of guidance for the new cabinet.
As an outsider to the SGA, I don’t know how much the second point will really affect whoever is elected President in 2016, but the first issue alone is in large part why Matt Hunt and Jess Smith won Wednesday night’s debate. As I mentioned, Vinny spent a lot of the evening saying “I agree with Matt,” and while Matt did on occasion say the same of Vinny, it seemed that more of the original content was coming from the incumbent ticket. If both tickets agree on virtually every point, where the only real “debate” was about the phrasing of a student-body poll about on-campus events, why should anyone vote for the ticket that will, by necessity, be less able to act on its goals and fulfill its promises? This past year has been an interesting and exciting one for the Student Government Association at Stevens, and I can envision no brighter future for the SGA than Matt Hunt and Jess Smith.
