War of the words: SGA presidential candidates go head-to-head one week before elections
Monday evening's Student Government Association presidential debate was a political battlefield as candidates unleashed a vernacular bombardment on one another.
Students donning campaign buttons and carrying support signs packed into Anspach 162 to hear the presidential and vice presidential candidates answer questions about their platforms.
The candidates were asked predetermined questions for the first half of the debate and questions from students posted on the SGA Twitter account, @CMUSGA, for the second half.
“We are ready to represent you,” said presidential candidate Charles Mahone as he gave his opening remarks to the audience. “Our platform is organic, from the student body.”
SGA President Marie Reimers opened reminding the audience of the accomplishments of her presidency and what she and running mate Margaret Blackmer intend to do if elected to office next fall.
Reimers said her top platforms are establishing CMU as a polling place, continuing to work with the university to increase the Campus Programming Fund to $1.8 million, and establishing a woman and gender resource officer position on campus, a platform Reimers ran on during her first campaign.
Both Reimers and Mahone agreed communication with the student body is important, however, they differ on how best to reach the student body. Reimers started an SGA newsletter on Orgsync this year to keep in touch with students, but Mahone wants to make communication more personal.
“We want to make face-to-face contact with the students,” Mahone said. “Students only see us during campaigns, it shouldn’t be that way. We plan on visiting the RSOs regularly.”
While Mahone has a plan to better connect with students, his plan to communicate with university officials is a work in progress, as he stated he only has experience talking to deans and a handful of administrators.
“Connecting does not just happen as president, it needs to happen all the time,” Reimers said. “I meet with President Ross monthly. You need to know who to talk to (to) get things done. That’s the important part.”
The internal workings of SGA have always been the task of the vice president, so whoever holds the seat needs to be familiar with every aspect of the organization.
Mahone claimed Blackmer’s lack of experience might be an issue for the office, as he said she has only held an administrative position while in SGA and has never been involved with what she might be in control of as vice president.
Although she has not served as a committee chair, Blackmer has been involved with SGA for the last two years.
As the debate continued, the candidates jabbed at each other’s policies more and more, picking at apparent weak points.
“We stand committed to divestment,” said Mahone’s running mate Mariah Urueta after being asked what makes their ticket standout. “The divestment movement was working with Marie at the beginning of the year, and we had a chance to talk to the (CMU) Board of Trustees. But, for whatever reason, we were dropped from the agenda.”
Reimers banked on the semester's worth of accomplishments that have been seen in the office during her presidency. Mahone argued Reimers' progress in SGA, asking what happened to several platforms she ran on last election season that never came to be.
Answering a Twitter question asking how the candidates plan to accomplish everything they are running on, Reimers said not everything happens in a year and that is why she is running again.
Voting begins March 31 and ends April 4 at midnight. Results of the election will be posted April 6.
