By Kelly Rayburn
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
The issues for UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association
Council candidates: transportation, student fees, housing and
diversity.
The issues for some candidates running for student government
offices at two other UCs: the feline community, longer recess and
“grog fountains.”
While USAC candidates tend to take themselves pretty seriously,
at other UC schools many candidates run joke campaigns, mocking
those who take their jobs and campaigns seriously.
Scott Daniel ran for Student Advocate on the Pokemon slate at
Berkeley and told the Daily Californian that if elected, he would
go about making a name for himself by “defecating on all
standards and practices at the university.”
“It was meant to make a mockery of the whole election
system,” said Daniel, on the creation of the Pokemon slate at
UC Berkeley.Â
Daniel said if elected he would do all he could to dismantle the
Associated Students of the University of California ““”“
Berkeley’s version of USAC ““”“ and return the
money to whom he said it belongs: the students.
Squelch! candidates at Berkeley use elections as an opportunity
to push their comedic agendas. Most Squelch! candidates also work
for a popular student-run comedy magazine by the same name.
This year their candidate for External Affairs Vice President,
Kenneth Byerly, said he would stand up for the feline community,
and advocated for more yarn, milk and mice.
“I’m not sure what their political motivations
are,” said Faisal Ghoriof, Elections Council chair at
Berkeley.
At UC Santa Barbara, meanwhile, one group of scurvy-ridden
students see no reason to take their representatives seriously.
“It’s really a popularity contest anyway,”
said Michael Beach, a third-year student and leader of the Pirate
Party who is otherwise known as Cap’n Mike. “I’m
the most popular person I can think of, so I figured I’d
run.”
Beach and two of his friends launched a write-in campaign this
election season. They stayed up late one night preparing a pirate
manifesto, 600 copies of which they distributed throughout Isla
Vista and on campus.
They challenge the Gaucho community with crucial questions like:
“If a pirate falls in the woods, would you make a
sound?”
Other issues pirates support include wench rights, longer
recess, “sticking it to the man” and voter apathy.
“We don’t really care,” Beach said. “All
we care about is looking for treasure. We support lots of
digging.
“I forget what else was in our manifesto,” Beach
said. “I was drinking grog when we wrote it.”
While UCSB’s two main slates run candidates who try to wow
constituents with statistics, Beach said pirates are more about
getting results.
“You can prove anything with statistics,” he said.
“Eighty-four percent of the people can tell you
that.”