SFUO Soapbox

Just a minute ago, I was in the process of doing one of my regular Facebook sweeps (some would call it creeping… we’re all guilty of it) when I came across a rather interesting fact:

As of right now [12:30am on Saturday, February 7th, 2009], Tyler Steeves and Seamus Wolfe, candidates for President of the SFUO, have a very similar number of people in their campaign Facebook groups:

Tyler Steeves pour/for PRESIDENT of the SFUO/FÉUO – 461 members

Seamus WOLFE for/comme Président – SFUO/FÉUO – 447 members

(In comparison, Renaud Garner‘s presidential group stands at 230 members, and I imagine Marc Kelly is too busy pissing off the administration to make a Facebook group, so we’ll just count him out.)

Image courtesy of Serge Miville.

Slight edge to Steeves, but the numbers don’t necessarily mean much, since people (like me) might be a member of both, but it is still interesting to note that:

a) They both have such a significant amount of supporters (on Facebook, granted);

b) They’re neck-and-neck pretty much in terms of support (but it’s all relative, going back to the fact that people can be double-dipping).

Referring to the presidential by-election results from last year on The SFUO Blog™, Dean Haldenby won his mandate with 651 votes. Does it then bode well for both candidates, who have amassed the equivalent of approximately 70% that number in Facebook confidence votes?

If they can be translated into an “X” beside their names on the ballot, than either will be well on their way to the presidency.

Personally, my thoughts are that Wolfe has the name-recognition, the push of his two terms as VP University Affairs, and enough of that somewhat moderate, non-polarizing vibe about him to be the front-runner.

[Notice I don't talk about platforms, for two reasons:

a) Regular Joes don't want to hear about policy, and other bloggers have probably deconstructed them better than I have the ability to anyway;

b) I'm actually saving my criticisms for another post.]

Steeves, on the other hand, comes out of virtually nowhere to land in the centre of the political map, with a face you just can’t say no to.  While he may be a bit green politically (as evidenced by his rather lackluster answers at the debates), he has a very polished image and gregarious personality that could endear him to many students who may not be following this election as closely as those who are either blogging or reading this blog.

‘Cuz let’s be honest: as much as we’d like everybody to be informed, the majority of students out there will vote based on cursory knowledge about the candidates, maybe a bit of hearsay, and then image.

Who will profit the most from this?  Well, he’s got the best image of the four (fantastic video, but he loses points for not having a French counterpart on his site).

Oh, and I think it’s safe to say we can discount Marc Kelly as a serious contender, since you’d have to take the guy seriously in the first place to vote for him.

Not to say that a certain amount of his supporters probably won’t crawl out of their holes to vote for him…

Finally, I still have to be convinced about RPG, since I have this nagging feeling based on his platform last year that he may just be a little too extreme for me (does anyone else get a Guy Fawkes impression from him?).  Although, he did mention in the debates he’s in it to win it this year, unlike last year when his goal was to apparently stir things up.

I’ve seen him in action, he seems genuinely in it for a “positive change”, for a level-headed management style; and as I’ve mentioned before, too, he’s a spectacularly intelligent and well-spoken individual.

So yah.  Long rant, I think this one took me two hours to spit out coherently.  Now, it’s back to work!