It's 8am. No-one is awake. Except for us. The first polling booth opened half an hour ago at 7:30am. As ULSU election rules say that the polls have to be open for 11 hours, this is obviously an early start so that the count can start early and everyone can go home early. It might have been easier to just change the rules but then that would require a quorate meeting. And after the dodgy practices of Student Union meetings under Pa O'Brien's tenure, people are watching that meetings are actually quorate. So maybe changing the rules wasn't an option after all.
Here's a cool thought though. Open the polls at midnight next time and we can close the polls at 11am, all sod off home soon after and have a nice afternoon. It almost removes the need to vote at all.
Predictions as we're doing nothing else:
Wins for:
Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin
Derek Daly
Aoife Finnerty (freebie prediction for everyone)
Lorcan O'Neill
Finn McDuffie
That's all for now.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Hustings '10
Hustings managed to slide itself out to almost two hours. We've seen longer hustings, we've seen shorter. But as the room was booked for 8 and hustings began at 6, everyone was getting kicked out of the room after two hours anyway unless they wanted to hang around to watch the Debating Society talk about students and alcohol. Even with it only being about the sixth debate all year the room managed to clear. We couldn't blame them, it's only the Drama Society running nothing for months that's keeping the debaters from scraping the barrell bottom as the biggest waste of UL societies money all year.
Held in the Jonathon Swift hall, the hustings picked up a mostyly full crowd, meaning there were about 130-150 people there. That's not bad. Not good but any more and they'd have been turned away. Then again, booking a room that can only seat 150-odd smacks of resignation that the crowd isn't going to be any bigger. It wouldn't hold a quorate Student Union meeting, though any recent quorate Student Union meetings have been achieved through pretence, lies, bothering people and generally acting the tool. It'd be a good place to hold them then.
Enough, on with what the designated performing monkeys had to say.
Communications:
Again, like last year, the Communications candidates were asked about printing material critical of the SU and again they gave the same sick puppy answer about it not being in the SU's interest to print material that might not say what a truly wonderful job they were doing. We got this last year from the current Comms officer of course. Which we suspect is partly why we don't see articles counting the number of proper campaigns that have been run this year. Then again, when we were taught how to count in school, the nice lady teacher told us to start at one and never explained that we could start at zero. We're not happy with this kind of answer at all. We weren't happy with it last year and we're sure as heck not happy with it this year. Especially as we happened to notice that in 2007/08 (the pre-Aoifes Breen and Ni Raghallaigh era), for one year An Focal was happy enough to carry material that was critical of the Student Union and it was a better paper for it. We seem to recall the thing being short-listed for Newspaper of the Year that year at the Student Media Awards and being self-critical can't have hurt. It was also the only year we remember where even the cynics actually believed the bumpf in the paper as it got a short reputation for being truthful. Then again, the dream died the following year and we're all older and more cynical now.
Asked about radio, O'Brien listed out his experience in running an online radio station for Rag Week, leaving McDuffie with little to do other than stand up and say that when he went to look there weren't very many people listening to it and hence losing the votes of anyone who was interested in radio at all by not saying if there was anything to be done at all at all. It was an obvious question and should have been prepped better by McDuffie.
Ex-Societies officer Darran Savage managed to ask the most incoherent question of the night, spending about three minutes asking a long rambling pile of muck which chair Joe Wallace guessed was something do to with advertising. Would there be more posters? Er, yes, thank you for wasting time by asking. Savage was an appalling Socs officer and we finally got to see how. Synapses on, synapses off. Never to be mixed up, only professionals should touch the on/off button. Take note. Also take note that we didn't insert a ginger joke, which we could well have. No chep shots here, only the multi-syllable expensive ones.
On the whole, O'Brien came across better than McDuffie. His opening speech was far better so we were corect yesterday about public specking not being McDuffie's strong point. Also, while it doesn't affect his ability to do the job, McDuffie sounds and looks 12. O'Brien managed to swap his often-dour exterior for one that actually looked interested. If the crowd was bigger people would have noticed.
Campaigns & Services:
Here's the difference between the two candidates for CSO as we see it. Lorcan O'Neill is believeable. Vivion Grisewood is not. We're not addressing capability, competency or any of that rubbish. Voters don't care about these things (Bertie got re-elected in 2007 after all) so why should we?
There was a pointed question from Steven Carmody about the CSO being perceived to not earn the money. We've no idea whether this was prompted by Carmody being Sharon Brosnan's bit of fluff, the motion that was to be presented to Class Reps Council by Paddy Rockett and a few of the more reputable class reps to dock the wages of the current CSO for in their view doing virtually nothing or just one of those questions you think up while you're sitting there. Either way, Fergal Dempsey probably won't be happy about it. Especially as Carmody was right - that's what people think. That's what we think as well.
The two boyos were asked what campaigns they'd run. Grisewood listed off some, most of which are run by other offices like Education and Welfare and then stopped. When you stop, you sit down, it looks better. You don't stand there and swallow. Well, not in the kind of movies you'd like to show in front of your mother. That gave O'Neill time to stand up and explain things about the campaigns he'd run, make a wise crack that you can protest too much and then no-one cares (obviously pointed at one of the presidential candidates) and manage to use up all of the allocated time and look like he had more to say. O'Neill looked far more comfortable up there than Grisewood did.
Education:
Game over, no-one cares. Aoife Finnerty gave a speech, which she didn't really need to. Apparently the rules say that she had to.
DP/Welfare:
Daniel Reid faltered like a sick pony when the Welfare candidates were asked about how the Welfare office could help out someone in financial difficulty. While Derek Daly stood up first and explained how the Financial Aid fund worked, Reid followed by saying he couldn't do anything but that co-op was great and sure, wasn't getting a good reference from co-op great. We only hope he misheard the question and misunderstood Daly's answer rather than the alternative, which is that the brain monkeys were busy talking about co-op while picking fleas out of each other's backs. The short of it was that Daly was a competent speaker on the night whereas Reid looked as though he was solidly in Forrest Gump swimming pool and gasping for air. It reminded us of that debate between Jed Bartlett and Robert Richie in season 4 of the West Wing. And that part where Bartlett tells Richie "You'll be back"? Richie wasn't, neither will Reid. Where's Alan Alda when you need him?
President:
Any idea of how many students there are in UL? Louise Clohessy is pretty sure it's 12 thousand. It may well be 12 thousand. Almost every time she stood up she mentioned the 12 thousand students in UL? Wanna hear more? 12 thousand. Any idea how repetitive this sounds? 12 thousand by the way. We think it might be closer to 13 but don't tell her. She said the pitches weren't that important to most students. Here's a little secret: she's right, most students don't give a crap. It's something you have to pretend to care about to get votes though Louise dear. Remember that thre next time. Even the dog catcher has to pretend to care about the dogs.
Sharon Brosnan: poor. If she didn't have a campaign team behind her that is significantly bigger than Clohessy's, we'd be slotting her into last place now. She also made a big booboo when she mentioned that she might be inclined to skive off on Wednesday afternoons to go skydiving. Yeah, honey. That's what you get paid to do as student president. She might have been joking but she forgot to laugh or say she was. She's not Jack Dee. She might not have been joking. Right now her campaign manager should be beating her to death with her own shoes.
Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin was highly competent without being accomplished. Of course there are only so many ways to say "I didn't set the building on fire". Then again Paddy Rockett might want to but more of that anon. He explained that the playing fields were going to be sorted by the time the north campus was open. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. And that the security issue in estates was going to be sorted with the next contract renewal. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. Is the level of reporting for our beloved newspaper now so low that stuff the sabbatical officers know beyond the ability of the An Focal writers to sniff out? Please, say it ain't so, bro.
Paddy Rockett is still on his fight the power soapbox (three time we had to type it, we kept on typing spaobox). He'll fight them on the beaches, under the sea, overground, underground, wombling free. While good pal Viv is dependent on Plassey House goodwill to have a big badass lawn party. Somehow we don't quite see the two of those going together well. Especially when Don Barry looks out his office window, sees Rockett permanently there with a banner and opens the window to shout "Sod off, you langer!" He's from Cork you know. They talk funny down there. We're half surprised he didn't finish every answer with a clenched Black Panther fist. Though, because he ran out of time every time, he kept talking on his way to reseat himself so maybe he forgot. Revolutionaries sometimes forget to actually bury the bodies so they don't have to remember where they're buried. That's the IKEA approach to revolutions. Advertise big, pack it away neatly.
Nick Ryan is a heck of a nice chap. We might have said that earlier. He talked about his time in Austria, which must be the greatest location on earth. He was on erasmus in Graz and brought home the idea of vending machine pharmacies, which he said was the one thing he'd do if he could only do one thing. Incidentally Arnold Schwarzenegger came from Graz. We're just saying. Competent speaker. And a heck of a nice chap who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Though we did hear on the dicky bird line that Nick threatened Paddy Rockett with a court case earlier in the day. Seems the Rockett campaign has tired of annoying the students and is now switching to the candidates. Upward and onward. We were hoping for a fist-fight but we never get what we want. A bike, a poke and a surprise, please Santa, since you're wondering.
Roundup:
What did we take from all this? Not a lot really. Some candidates managed to go down severly in our estimation (Reid and Brosnan in particular), some managed to go up slightly (O'Brien and Daly in particular). We'd have given something valuable for a good fight or something. Ten rounds but you'll only need three, that kind of thing. Winner gets all the lollipops and 400 free votes on election day. It'd be more fun.
Did it change our view of the results? Ryan might do better in the presidential race than we thought. Nothing significant though. It's still Dillon-McLoughlin's game.
Held in the Jonathon Swift hall, the hustings picked up a mostyly full crowd, meaning there were about 130-150 people there. That's not bad. Not good but any more and they'd have been turned away. Then again, booking a room that can only seat 150-odd smacks of resignation that the crowd isn't going to be any bigger. It wouldn't hold a quorate Student Union meeting, though any recent quorate Student Union meetings have been achieved through pretence, lies, bothering people and generally acting the tool. It'd be a good place to hold them then.
Enough, on with what the designated performing monkeys had to say.
Communications:
Again, like last year, the Communications candidates were asked about printing material critical of the SU and again they gave the same sick puppy answer about it not being in the SU's interest to print material that might not say what a truly wonderful job they were doing. We got this last year from the current Comms officer of course. Which we suspect is partly why we don't see articles counting the number of proper campaigns that have been run this year. Then again, when we were taught how to count in school, the nice lady teacher told us to start at one and never explained that we could start at zero. We're not happy with this kind of answer at all. We weren't happy with it last year and we're sure as heck not happy with it this year. Especially as we happened to notice that in 2007/08 (the pre-Aoifes Breen and Ni Raghallaigh era), for one year An Focal was happy enough to carry material that was critical of the Student Union and it was a better paper for it. We seem to recall the thing being short-listed for Newspaper of the Year that year at the Student Media Awards and being self-critical can't have hurt. It was also the only year we remember where even the cynics actually believed the bumpf in the paper as it got a short reputation for being truthful. Then again, the dream died the following year and we're all older and more cynical now.
Asked about radio, O'Brien listed out his experience in running an online radio station for Rag Week, leaving McDuffie with little to do other than stand up and say that when he went to look there weren't very many people listening to it and hence losing the votes of anyone who was interested in radio at all by not saying if there was anything to be done at all at all. It was an obvious question and should have been prepped better by McDuffie.
Ex-Societies officer Darran Savage managed to ask the most incoherent question of the night, spending about three minutes asking a long rambling pile of muck which chair Joe Wallace guessed was something do to with advertising. Would there be more posters? Er, yes, thank you for wasting time by asking. Savage was an appalling Socs officer and we finally got to see how. Synapses on, synapses off. Never to be mixed up, only professionals should touch the on/off button. Take note. Also take note that we didn't insert a ginger joke, which we could well have. No chep shots here, only the multi-syllable expensive ones.
On the whole, O'Brien came across better than McDuffie. His opening speech was far better so we were corect yesterday about public specking not being McDuffie's strong point. Also, while it doesn't affect his ability to do the job, McDuffie sounds and looks 12. O'Brien managed to swap his often-dour exterior for one that actually looked interested. If the crowd was bigger people would have noticed.
Campaigns & Services:
Here's the difference between the two candidates for CSO as we see it. Lorcan O'Neill is believeable. Vivion Grisewood is not. We're not addressing capability, competency or any of that rubbish. Voters don't care about these things (Bertie got re-elected in 2007 after all) so why should we?
There was a pointed question from Steven Carmody about the CSO being perceived to not earn the money. We've no idea whether this was prompted by Carmody being Sharon Brosnan's bit of fluff, the motion that was to be presented to Class Reps Council by Paddy Rockett and a few of the more reputable class reps to dock the wages of the current CSO for in their view doing virtually nothing or just one of those questions you think up while you're sitting there. Either way, Fergal Dempsey probably won't be happy about it. Especially as Carmody was right - that's what people think. That's what we think as well.
The two boyos were asked what campaigns they'd run. Grisewood listed off some, most of which are run by other offices like Education and Welfare and then stopped. When you stop, you sit down, it looks better. You don't stand there and swallow. Well, not in the kind of movies you'd like to show in front of your mother. That gave O'Neill time to stand up and explain things about the campaigns he'd run, make a wise crack that you can protest too much and then no-one cares (obviously pointed at one of the presidential candidates) and manage to use up all of the allocated time and look like he had more to say. O'Neill looked far more comfortable up there than Grisewood did.
Education:
Game over, no-one cares. Aoife Finnerty gave a speech, which she didn't really need to. Apparently the rules say that she had to.
DP/Welfare:
Daniel Reid faltered like a sick pony when the Welfare candidates were asked about how the Welfare office could help out someone in financial difficulty. While Derek Daly stood up first and explained how the Financial Aid fund worked, Reid followed by saying he couldn't do anything but that co-op was great and sure, wasn't getting a good reference from co-op great. We only hope he misheard the question and misunderstood Daly's answer rather than the alternative, which is that the brain monkeys were busy talking about co-op while picking fleas out of each other's backs. The short of it was that Daly was a competent speaker on the night whereas Reid looked as though he was solidly in Forrest Gump swimming pool and gasping for air. It reminded us of that debate between Jed Bartlett and Robert Richie in season 4 of the West Wing. And that part where Bartlett tells Richie "You'll be back"? Richie wasn't, neither will Reid. Where's Alan Alda when you need him?
President:
Any idea of how many students there are in UL? Louise Clohessy is pretty sure it's 12 thousand. It may well be 12 thousand. Almost every time she stood up she mentioned the 12 thousand students in UL? Wanna hear more? 12 thousand. Any idea how repetitive this sounds? 12 thousand by the way. We think it might be closer to 13 but don't tell her. She said the pitches weren't that important to most students. Here's a little secret: she's right, most students don't give a crap. It's something you have to pretend to care about to get votes though Louise dear. Remember that thre next time. Even the dog catcher has to pretend to care about the dogs.
Sharon Brosnan: poor. If she didn't have a campaign team behind her that is significantly bigger than Clohessy's, we'd be slotting her into last place now. She also made a big booboo when she mentioned that she might be inclined to skive off on Wednesday afternoons to go skydiving. Yeah, honey. That's what you get paid to do as student president. She might have been joking but she forgot to laugh or say she was. She's not Jack Dee. She might not have been joking. Right now her campaign manager should be beating her to death with her own shoes.
Ruan Dillon-McLoughlin was highly competent without being accomplished. Of course there are only so many ways to say "I didn't set the building on fire". Then again Paddy Rockett might want to but more of that anon. He explained that the playing fields were going to be sorted by the time the north campus was open. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. And that the security issue in estates was going to be sorted with the next contract renewal. Not that we've seen that in An Focal. Is the level of reporting for our beloved newspaper now so low that stuff the sabbatical officers know beyond the ability of the An Focal writers to sniff out? Please, say it ain't so, bro.
Paddy Rockett is still on his fight the power soapbox (three time we had to type it, we kept on typing spaobox). He'll fight them on the beaches, under the sea, overground, underground, wombling free. While good pal Viv is dependent on Plassey House goodwill to have a big badass lawn party. Somehow we don't quite see the two of those going together well. Especially when Don Barry looks out his office window, sees Rockett permanently there with a banner and opens the window to shout "Sod off, you langer!" He's from Cork you know. They talk funny down there. We're half surprised he didn't finish every answer with a clenched Black Panther fist. Though, because he ran out of time every time, he kept talking on his way to reseat himself so maybe he forgot. Revolutionaries sometimes forget to actually bury the bodies so they don't have to remember where they're buried. That's the IKEA approach to revolutions. Advertise big, pack it away neatly.
Nick Ryan is a heck of a nice chap. We might have said that earlier. He talked about his time in Austria, which must be the greatest location on earth. He was on erasmus in Graz and brought home the idea of vending machine pharmacies, which he said was the one thing he'd do if he could only do one thing. Incidentally Arnold Schwarzenegger came from Graz. We're just saying. Competent speaker. And a heck of a nice chap who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Though we did hear on the dicky bird line that Nick threatened Paddy Rockett with a court case earlier in the day. Seems the Rockett campaign has tired of annoying the students and is now switching to the candidates. Upward and onward. We were hoping for a fist-fight but we never get what we want. A bike, a poke and a surprise, please Santa, since you're wondering.
Roundup:
What did we take from all this? Not a lot really. Some candidates managed to go down severly in our estimation (Reid and Brosnan in particular), some managed to go up slightly (O'Brien and Daly in particular). We'd have given something valuable for a good fight or something. Ten rounds but you'll only need three, that kind of thing. Winner gets all the lollipops and 400 free votes on election day. It'd be more fun.
Did it change our view of the results? Ryan might do better in the presidential race than we thought. Nothing significant though. It's still Dillon-McLoughlin's game.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Things have changed...
In most Irish colleges when it comes to elections, candidates with little imagination of their own tend to rip off designs from elsewhere. Cartoons have been a popular choice, with the Simpsons and Family Guy becoming firm favourites for people who don't know any better.
At UL it's been different for a few years as the Student Union have to approve all election material and SU staff members have usually laid down a no fist on anything that might rip off someone else's trademark or creation. Two years ago, the entire campaign plan of one candidate for Education Officer had to be thrown out when they didn't like candidate Diarmuid Healy using Time Magazine's look for his campaign, down to replicating the front page as a poster. Bad boy Healy was sent away to get the permission of Time Warner to use their look. Good luck with that mate.
So we're a bit confused that Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's campaign is allowed to rip off the BBC by repeatedly using images of speedy driver The Stig in his campaign, from multiple posters down to creating a facebook profile that purports to be The Stig supporting him. And Finn McDuffie's campaign using the Duff beer logo from the Simpsons, actually licensed by Fox to a beer maker who makes real Duff beer (you can buy it in the Stables).
The BBC tend to sue when their stuff is ripped off. Fox are even worse for it. Neither company is a fan of their intellectual rights being ripped off by a crowd of opportunistic students. Fox sued a public service creche in the US last year when they put a picture of Bart Simpson on the wall. While the SU may think they're immune from this, it still makes us wonder. Is this stuff only approved for the candidates they like?
Questions, questions... probably not going to be answered as long as the results are what they want...
Note that we edited a name out of this post as on mature thought we decided it wasn't fair to point the finger at one person in particular.
At UL it's been different for a few years as the Student Union have to approve all election material and SU staff members have usually laid down a no fist on anything that might rip off someone else's trademark or creation. Two years ago, the entire campaign plan of one candidate for Education Officer had to be thrown out when they didn't like candidate Diarmuid Healy using Time Magazine's look for his campaign, down to replicating the front page as a poster. Bad boy Healy was sent away to get the permission of Time Warner to use their look. Good luck with that mate.
So we're a bit confused that Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's campaign is allowed to rip off the BBC by repeatedly using images of speedy driver The Stig in his campaign, from multiple posters down to creating a facebook profile that purports to be The Stig supporting him. And Finn McDuffie's campaign using the Duff beer logo from the Simpsons, actually licensed by Fox to a beer maker who makes real Duff beer (you can buy it in the Stables).
The BBC tend to sue when their stuff is ripped off. Fox are even worse for it. Neither company is a fan of their intellectual rights being ripped off by a crowd of opportunistic students. Fox sued a public service creche in the US last year when they put a picture of Bart Simpson on the wall. While the SU may think they're immune from this, it still makes us wonder. Is this stuff only approved for the candidates they like?
Questions, questions... probably not going to be answered as long as the results are what they want...
Note that we edited a name out of this post as on mature thought we decided it wasn't fair to point the finger at one person in particular.
How things are falling
Over half way through the campaigning, still a lot to play for but here's how we see things going at the moment:
President:
Ruan Dillon McLoughlin has his posse out and they're hopping around houses and courtyards as though there's no tomorrow. Paddy Rockett's posse is doing likewise but they're being far more annoying about it and that tends to turn people off. People who have friends and talk to them. Which Rockett might be running out of by the end of the week, despite a few extra votes to be picked up from it. Nick Ryan's sticking in there but doesn't look like he's holding the pace, there just isn't the buzz around his campaign that he needs to hold the line. Sharon Brosnan and Louise Clohessy are beginning to look like also-rans by now. While Brosnan is apparently going to skydive on to the campus at noon tomorrow, she might be better off staying on the ground and asking people for a few votes. Clohessy is looking like a solid last. While both female candidates are likely to pick up a small number of women voting for women votes, some women just won't vote for their peers and men, especially UL men, are far more backward abot the notion of women being in power. It's beginning to look like Dillon McLoughlin's game to win or lose.
DP/Welfare:
Derek Daly is apparently making an effort to keep answering queries during this week as part of his current DP/Welfare job, which should place him at a bit of a time disadvantage. The way we're calling this one so far though is that he's so much more electable than Daniel Reid, who waited until the last minute to decide which job he was going to run for. Based on some of the postings over on the boards.ie UL forum from his supporters, we're surprised he isn't at home collecting funds for Haiti rather than campaigning. It's a Daly ball by the looks of things.
Education:
This match was over last Friday, remember?
CSO:
This one is likely to be tight. It depends on how many people are annoyed by the Rockett campaign and how swift they are to associate Vivion Grisewood with his clone friend. Sorry, ticket colleague. Sorry, coincidentally similar manifesto and campaign buddy. Grisewood's campaign team may look grumpy (and they are) but they're covering some good ground, even if they weren't appraised of the rules and tried to chalk the courtyard. Twice. The Lorcan O'Neill campaign is also solidly covering the bases and to be honest, at the moment this one's too hard to call. We'd put O'Neill slightly ahead. All to play for.
Communications:
Clever move by the McDuffie campaign in spreading the rumour that an Eoghan O'Brien win would see the death of An Focal. While it's not true as we read the manifesto, as most people still get their out of date news from the paper, people probably want to hang on to it, such as it has become. It's one of the major things putting McDuffie solidly ahead of O'Brien at the moment. We're not prepared to call it yet but it's looking as though McDuffie may have an easier battle than Ni Raghallaigh did last year, especially as the anointed replacement. Even despite the weakness of his campaign manager as O'Brien's is even less likely to make a difference. He may screw up at Hustings - despite being an auditor of the Debating Society, we're told that McDuffie didn't speak much and wasn't capable of holding a committe to task there. Then again, we've already pointed out his paper bag fighting weakness. Ball's still in play.
President:
Ruan Dillon McLoughlin has his posse out and they're hopping around houses and courtyards as though there's no tomorrow. Paddy Rockett's posse is doing likewise but they're being far more annoying about it and that tends to turn people off. People who have friends and talk to them. Which Rockett might be running out of by the end of the week, despite a few extra votes to be picked up from it. Nick Ryan's sticking in there but doesn't look like he's holding the pace, there just isn't the buzz around his campaign that he needs to hold the line. Sharon Brosnan and Louise Clohessy are beginning to look like also-rans by now. While Brosnan is apparently going to skydive on to the campus at noon tomorrow, she might be better off staying on the ground and asking people for a few votes. Clohessy is looking like a solid last. While both female candidates are likely to pick up a small number of women voting for women votes, some women just won't vote for their peers and men, especially UL men, are far more backward abot the notion of women being in power. It's beginning to look like Dillon McLoughlin's game to win or lose.
DP/Welfare:
Derek Daly is apparently making an effort to keep answering queries during this week as part of his current DP/Welfare job, which should place him at a bit of a time disadvantage. The way we're calling this one so far though is that he's so much more electable than Daniel Reid, who waited until the last minute to decide which job he was going to run for. Based on some of the postings over on the boards.ie UL forum from his supporters, we're surprised he isn't at home collecting funds for Haiti rather than campaigning. It's a Daly ball by the looks of things.
Education:
This match was over last Friday, remember?
CSO:
This one is likely to be tight. It depends on how many people are annoyed by the Rockett campaign and how swift they are to associate Vivion Grisewood with his clone friend. Sorry, ticket colleague. Sorry, coincidentally similar manifesto and campaign buddy. Grisewood's campaign team may look grumpy (and they are) but they're covering some good ground, even if they weren't appraised of the rules and tried to chalk the courtyard. Twice. The Lorcan O'Neill campaign is also solidly covering the bases and to be honest, at the moment this one's too hard to call. We'd put O'Neill slightly ahead. All to play for.
Communications:
Clever move by the McDuffie campaign in spreading the rumour that an Eoghan O'Brien win would see the death of An Focal. While it's not true as we read the manifesto, as most people still get their out of date news from the paper, people probably want to hang on to it, such as it has become. It's one of the major things putting McDuffie solidly ahead of O'Brien at the moment. We're not prepared to call it yet but it's looking as though McDuffie may have an easier battle than Ni Raghallaigh did last year, especially as the anointed replacement. Even despite the weakness of his campaign manager as O'Brien's is even less likely to make a difference. He may screw up at Hustings - despite being an auditor of the Debating Society, we're told that McDuffie didn't speak much and wasn't capable of holding a committe to task there. Then again, we've already pointed out his paper bag fighting weakness. Ball's still in play.
Naughty rocket in his pocket?
It appears that things may be blowing up in the face of the Rockett after a day or two's campaigning. Facing into a battle with the current president defending his title, surrounded by all the kayakers in the universe can't be easy but the word on the ground is that people are getting seriously peeved with the in your face tactics of the Rockett campaign and the blocking of progress through the Red Raisins for people.
Add to that the little rumours spreading about a pre-election deal struck with the Lodge night club and Paddy Rockett might have the Electoral and Referenda board to contend with as well as a growing band of annoyed punters who'll vote for someone else through plain annoyance. It's not as though we're especially impressed with the power of the ERB but they have the power to pull a candidate's name from the ballot and if our dicky birds are on the ball and are correct that there's encouraging help and free tickets for Rockett supporters being handed out by the local shifting zone during this week, then there could well be a breach of the rule about not getting support from outside interests. And far beyond a few people in the Tuesday market wearing Dempsey t-shirts last year. Whatever about the obvious ticket going on between Rockett and good pal Vivion Grisewood for CSO, this could well be the step over the line that turns people off the campaign for good.
Today could well be the day that we discover if the ERB have any teeth or if they're going to sit, play dumb and wait for an official complaint. GIven the reticient nature of the members of the current board, we're not that hopeful that they'll do more than nothing or whine a little. Time will tell.
Add to that the little rumours spreading about a pre-election deal struck with the Lodge night club and Paddy Rockett might have the Electoral and Referenda board to contend with as well as a growing band of annoyed punters who'll vote for someone else through plain annoyance. It's not as though we're especially impressed with the power of the ERB but they have the power to pull a candidate's name from the ballot and if our dicky birds are on the ball and are correct that there's encouraging help and free tickets for Rockett supporters being handed out by the local shifting zone during this week, then there could well be a breach of the rule about not getting support from outside interests. And far beyond a few people in the Tuesday market wearing Dempsey t-shirts last year. Whatever about the obvious ticket going on between Rockett and good pal Vivion Grisewood for CSO, this could well be the step over the line that turns people off the campaign for good.
Today could well be the day that we discover if the ERB have any teeth or if they're going to sit, play dumb and wait for an official complaint. GIven the reticient nature of the members of the current board, we're not that hopeful that they'll do more than nothing or whine a little. Time will tell.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Circus 2010 is coming!
It's been a year. Who would have thought it, with all the campaigns we've seen from the Student Union over the past few months! Marches, posters, news appearances, all in aid of improving the lot of the students at UL. What a lot we have to be thankful for! Oh, wait.
More of that anon. It's erection time! For some. For the rest of us, it's election time!
Presidential wannabes:
The worst kept secret for the past twelve months is that Paddy Rockett was planning on running for president. He announced before anyone else. Several times. At parties after a few beers or twelve, in the Stables after a few beers or twelve, on the Internet probably after a few drinkies for all we know. In any case, he was running for president. With very important things to say. And with particular criticism of the SU and how it engaged with the community. Despite his past role as Community Relations Officer, a job we'll hear more about later. Paddy likes cute bunnies and is studying science education. We made the first thing up.
Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's also going for another outing. It's been a quiet year for the SU, not much going on, very business-like and lots of co-operation between the university and the Student Union. What about we're not sure. But the SU did say supportive things about the building of Don Barry's 3 million euro house. We hope there was a kickback to the SU of some sort for that. Other events for the SU this year have mostly included... nothing. Lots of co-operation in a business-like environment though. Ruan is your current president.
Louise Clohessy. She's apparently a law student. That's all we know. She's blonde we think. That's not relevant but we don't even know her shoe size. She's probably going to highlight the "outsider breaking the clique" thing. Because that's a new tactic. As we said, Louise is a law student.
The snowboarder, Nick Ryan. The most affable bloke in the universe. Possibly more affable than Ruan. We're not sure who's more happy friendly smiley but a fight to the death should decide. With swizzle sticks. Nick studies business. And snow.
The last entrant into the presidential race was Sharon Brosnan who apparently decided late after her squeeze put out some feelers to people and got some positive responses. She likes to jump out of planes for fun. Sharon studies digital media. And gravity.
Welfare wannabes:
Welfare (aka condom person) comes with a free promotion to Deputy President. Everyone else is also a Vice-President. Except for the President, who is President President. The SU is set up for an organisation with thousands of staff. Except it has about six.
Your welfare offerings this year are both Fianna Failers. That may be good or bad depending on who you vote for but it is what it is.
Derek Daly is the outgoing Welfare officer and has decided he wants to give away condoms to people who don't know which way is up for yet another year. He's regarded as extremely competent, if a little uninspiring. Then again, it's Welfare. Not really a job for lining up all your successes and declaring how you helped them. People might not like that. He's definitely been approachable. And efficient.
Daniel Reid was community relations officer for a while last term. Deemed resigned for missing two exec meetings in a row without giving notice. Of course, given that he was only CRO for two exec meetings and missed both, that'd be all of the exec meetings missed without notice. We wonder if he'll put it down as experience on his CV. Reid argued about it with the SU, saying he didn't know about the meetings or something. We're wondering if he knew what the job was about at all, given that his election posters had him standing in front of an African hut. We fear there may be more of that.
Education wannabes:
Aoife Finnerty got nominated. No-one else did. Election over.
Campaigns & Services wannabes:
Campaigns and Services is the most useless job in the history of Student Unions ever, anywhere, bar none. For as long as we can remember, the campaigns and services officers have forgotten to run any campaigns. The current officer, Fergal Dempsey, has supposedly been too busy with the services to run any. The previous officer, Damian Cahill, had a bit of a protest or two about fees and forgot to run anything else after Christmas. Previous to that we had Paddy McHugh, who said at the start of the year that the services run themselves and then forgot to run any campaigns at all. Too busy "strategising". Before that we don't know. It's an annual twenty thousand euro sinkhole that the Student Union could plug up by just abolishing the job. Everyone's been simply useless. They might not have bothered. We'd have an interest in the performance of this job but everyone's been so bad in the past that we'd fall asleep.
Vivion Grisewood is involved with the UL rugby team. Not the UL Bohemians, the student team. He's also the current Community Relations Officer, elected unopposed after Daniel Reid got kicked. That's eh about it.
Lorcan O'Neill is the current Faculties Officer. Not that we're sure what that is really but we're willing to bet that he goes to a lot of faculty meetings.
Communications wannabes:
We've been quite interested in elections for this position for the past few years as the communications officer is responsible for An Focal and the website as well as every other aspect of Union propaganda. And the most recent two officers (Aoife Breen and Aoife Ni Raghallaigh) have very much toed the SU line, not allowing much or any criticism to make it into the Union paper. Last year, Aoife Ni Raghallaigh even stood up at hustings and announced that she wouldn't allow criticism of the SU to be printed, which cemented the reputation of the paper as little more than a propaganda exercise and a poor one at that.
Finn McDuffie is the current An Focal features editor. He's probably right behind Nick Ryan in the niceness stakes. All fluffy and happy. We reckon he doesn't have the hard nature that being a good newspaper editor requires. Of course, An Focal isn't a good newspaper, especially lately, so maybe that's not so important. Though we'd like it to be a good newspaper again as it's been semi-muck for a year and a half so maybe it is important. He will tell you how much he's written for the paper and probably base his entire campaign around it. We got that from the last two Aoife editors and look how well that worked out. Yes, we're being sarcastic. It's the Internet so we can.
Second up for Communications is Eoghan O'Brien, with a background in radio. UL doesn't have a radio station. But he's less fluffy than Finn so that's a plus. He might actually be able to tell people to go screw themselves. We're not too sure if he's ever written for the paper. He ran Rag Radio two years ago when the Student Union tried out something new for a change. But we're not sure if he's ever written for the paper. Yes, we said it twice. It's the Internet so we can.
The final list is:
President
DP/Welfare
Education
Campaigns & Services
Communications
We've never heard of some of these people. OK, we've never heard of Louise Clohessy. We're pretty sure she has though so that's alright.
More of that anon. It's erection time! For some. For the rest of us, it's election time!
Presidential wannabes:
The worst kept secret for the past twelve months is that Paddy Rockett was planning on running for president. He announced before anyone else. Several times. At parties after a few beers or twelve, in the Stables after a few beers or twelve, on the Internet probably after a few drinkies for all we know. In any case, he was running for president. With very important things to say. And with particular criticism of the SU and how it engaged with the community. Despite his past role as Community Relations Officer, a job we'll hear more about later. Paddy likes cute bunnies and is studying science education. We made the first thing up.
Ruan Dillon McLoughlin's also going for another outing. It's been a quiet year for the SU, not much going on, very business-like and lots of co-operation between the university and the Student Union. What about we're not sure. But the SU did say supportive things about the building of Don Barry's 3 million euro house. We hope there was a kickback to the SU of some sort for that. Other events for the SU this year have mostly included... nothing. Lots of co-operation in a business-like environment though. Ruan is your current president.
Louise Clohessy. She's apparently a law student. That's all we know. She's blonde we think. That's not relevant but we don't even know her shoe size. She's probably going to highlight the "outsider breaking the clique" thing. Because that's a new tactic. As we said, Louise is a law student.
The snowboarder, Nick Ryan. The most affable bloke in the universe. Possibly more affable than Ruan. We're not sure who's more happy friendly smiley but a fight to the death should decide. With swizzle sticks. Nick studies business. And snow.
The last entrant into the presidential race was Sharon Brosnan who apparently decided late after her squeeze put out some feelers to people and got some positive responses. She likes to jump out of planes for fun. Sharon studies digital media. And gravity.
Welfare wannabes:
Welfare (aka condom person) comes with a free promotion to Deputy President. Everyone else is also a Vice-President. Except for the President, who is President President. The SU is set up for an organisation with thousands of staff. Except it has about six.
Your welfare offerings this year are both Fianna Failers. That may be good or bad depending on who you vote for but it is what it is.
Derek Daly is the outgoing Welfare officer and has decided he wants to give away condoms to people who don't know which way is up for yet another year. He's regarded as extremely competent, if a little uninspiring. Then again, it's Welfare. Not really a job for lining up all your successes and declaring how you helped them. People might not like that. He's definitely been approachable. And efficient.
Daniel Reid was community relations officer for a while last term. Deemed resigned for missing two exec meetings in a row without giving notice. Of course, given that he was only CRO for two exec meetings and missed both, that'd be all of the exec meetings missed without notice. We wonder if he'll put it down as experience on his CV. Reid argued about it with the SU, saying he didn't know about the meetings or something. We're wondering if he knew what the job was about at all, given that his election posters had him standing in front of an African hut. We fear there may be more of that.
Education wannabes:
Aoife Finnerty got nominated. No-one else did. Election over.
Campaigns & Services wannabes:
Campaigns and Services is the most useless job in the history of Student Unions ever, anywhere, bar none. For as long as we can remember, the campaigns and services officers have forgotten to run any campaigns. The current officer, Fergal Dempsey, has supposedly been too busy with the services to run any. The previous officer, Damian Cahill, had a bit of a protest or two about fees and forgot to run anything else after Christmas. Previous to that we had Paddy McHugh, who said at the start of the year that the services run themselves and then forgot to run any campaigns at all. Too busy "strategising". Before that we don't know. It's an annual twenty thousand euro sinkhole that the Student Union could plug up by just abolishing the job. Everyone's been simply useless. They might not have bothered. We'd have an interest in the performance of this job but everyone's been so bad in the past that we'd fall asleep.
Vivion Grisewood is involved with the UL rugby team. Not the UL Bohemians, the student team. He's also the current Community Relations Officer, elected unopposed after Daniel Reid got kicked. That's eh about it.
Lorcan O'Neill is the current Faculties Officer. Not that we're sure what that is really but we're willing to bet that he goes to a lot of faculty meetings.
Communications wannabes:
We've been quite interested in elections for this position for the past few years as the communications officer is responsible for An Focal and the website as well as every other aspect of Union propaganda. And the most recent two officers (Aoife Breen and Aoife Ni Raghallaigh) have very much toed the SU line, not allowing much or any criticism to make it into the Union paper. Last year, Aoife Ni Raghallaigh even stood up at hustings and announced that she wouldn't allow criticism of the SU to be printed, which cemented the reputation of the paper as little more than a propaganda exercise and a poor one at that.
Finn McDuffie is the current An Focal features editor. He's probably right behind Nick Ryan in the niceness stakes. All fluffy and happy. We reckon he doesn't have the hard nature that being a good newspaper editor requires. Of course, An Focal isn't a good newspaper, especially lately, so maybe that's not so important. Though we'd like it to be a good newspaper again as it's been semi-muck for a year and a half so maybe it is important. He will tell you how much he's written for the paper and probably base his entire campaign around it. We got that from the last two Aoife editors and look how well that worked out. Yes, we're being sarcastic. It's the Internet so we can.
Second up for Communications is Eoghan O'Brien, with a background in radio. UL doesn't have a radio station. But he's less fluffy than Finn so that's a plus. He might actually be able to tell people to go screw themselves. We're not too sure if he's ever written for the paper. He ran Rag Radio two years ago when the Student Union tried out something new for a change. But we're not sure if he's ever written for the paper. Yes, we said it twice. It's the Internet so we can.
The final list is:
President
- Sharon Brosnan
- Louise Clohessy
- Ruán Dillon McLoughlin
- Paddy Rockett
- Nick Ryan
DP/Welfare
- Derek Daly
- Daniel Reid
Education
- Aoife Finnerty (only nomination, deemed elected)
Campaigns & Services
- Vivion Grisewood
- Lorcan O'Neill
Communications
- Finn McDuffie
- Eoghan O'Brien
We've never heard of some of these people. OK, we've never heard of Louise Clohessy. We're pretty sure she has though so that's alright.
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