Kevin's Election Roundup Day 1:

Time to start the theorizing and matchups. I'm handicapped by not knowing any of the CalSERVE Exec Candidates at all, but at least that makes me no different from the rest of the student body. Rampant speculation!

Open Questions:

What does the 'Internal Drama' in CalSERVE actually mean for elections? Probably nothing, as CS can focus on elections once they have an enemy to concentrate on. On the other hand, a lack of behind the scenes unity could mean poor turnout and time wasted on internal squabbling.

What has Ms. Chaney done leadership-wise outside of the African-American Community? President Primm is in the Greek system, an athelete, and knew a huge amount of people from a wide variety of groups. Senator Leybovich is an Engineer, Greek, and Jewish. Both were already pretty well known campus wide. Is Ms. Chaney well-known outside of the Progressive/African-American communities? I am speaking here of groups that are non-political.

Is President Primm going to be involved? I believed and still believe that Kris Primm was the single most important reason that CalSERVE swept the Executive elections last year. It's not just his personal popularity, but the way he made huge inroads into non-traditional-CalSERVE territory. (Greeks... Res Hall...) If he pours time and effort into electioneering, he could still be a huge factor in this election. And he is running for Senate this year... or at least his name's on the ballot.

Will Senator Leybovich and Senator Gade 'fit' into the SA mold? And is that model still valid? SA usually goes with immensely strong campaigning and single-minded devotion to duty. Plus the ability to campaign as a slate and assemble huge cores of volunteers. Senator Leybovich has made a stab at that, but we'll see if Senator Gade can make a similar effort. Also, is the old model still the way to win elections? It was run last year without success. Maybe it's time for a new one.

Who's the other Student Advocate candidate? Speaking as Squelch! SAO candidate Deenihan, I'm surprised that the Office hasn't publicily come out with a candidate yet. Although this is probably just a measure of my outsider-ness this year. Will Squelch! win for the third time in four years? Will I turn the office into a personal fiefdom, writing cranky letters to the Daily Cal whenever they refer to the 'Four Execs?'

UPDATE: Advocate Madan is running again.

Will this BEARS-United thing turn out to actually be important electorally? SA is worried that they'll cut into Senator Leybovich's base. The easy way to figure this out is to ask how many volunteers they have, how much money they're spending per candidate, and how much time they intend to spend campaigning. If the answer is less then '50, $1000, Every Hour' then they aren't a factor.

If you're keeping track, here's the Ethnic/Gender breakdown of the Big 8. As usual, it's actually fairly representative of student demographics. Racial gerrymandering or heartwarming example of diversity, I don't know.

Male: 3
Female: 5

White & Jewish: 3
Indian: 1
Asian: 2
Latino: 1
African-Am: 1

As usual, the Squelch! slate is:

Male: 4
Female: 1

White: 5

More Outsider Speculation as it comes in!
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