An Indie Unity In the Works?
A source close to the action down in Florida informs me that there is an attempt ongoing to bring about a merger between the two independent parties. The two sides understand the “veracity” of what happened in the last election and feel compelled to “move on” past the bad blood of the 12/11 scandal and the nominating process that caused the split in the first place.
In an independent movement such as this, supporters of both sides must come to understand that a knee-jerk loyalty to factionalism and personality is almost exactly what the FBK deploys in keeping its Gator/Unite pals in charge of Student Government. The whole point of being Independent in the SG conduct was meant to break down the need for such hyperpartisan bloc voting, and for a coming together behind the right ideas and right people for the job.
The ideal post-FBK Student Government would look past which side you were on in the 12/11 or GMG scandals and celebrate the common ground that unites everyone as Senators and as students.
Let’s face it – the Unite Party cannot possibly unite the campus. But neither Progress nor O&B can defeat Unite without first uniting with one another in that common cause.
Fall is always hard enough without two independent parties competing for every non-Greek-pledge that is voting. And from what my sources are saying, there are some folks who already understand that, even if it looks like UF is set for some more bloodletting in this internal feud.
Fortunately, there’s six months to let the bad blood drain out before the truly hard work resumes.
Eh there may be issues now but we have to remember that we’ll be in a far different position by August. There’s six months before the next election, including three where most of us won’t even be at UF. There’s a whole Senate term, a lot of people (including some of the ones that piss people off the most) will be graduating, progress will be made on the online voting lawsuit (http://199.242.69.70/pls/ds/ds_docket?p_caseyear=2008&p_casenumber=1358&psCourt=1&psSearchType=); all in all, the shape of the campus will be so different by Fall that I think it’s pretty meaningless to speculate on what the lay of the land will be then.
One of the things that will be most interesting to watch is how successful the parties will be in implementing their platform ideas. Unlike the current regime, I’m pretty confident that JJ will at least try to implement some of his platform goals. I’m not really sure which of those are implementable though.
Something I’m looking forward to trying more of in fall is legislating through the ballot box. The handscanner initiative was a good prototype for that, things that are very popular with students that Senate refuses to implement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the handscanner initiative performed best where O&B and Progress performed best (Turlington 2nd floor, NEB) and performed worst where Unite performed best (Springs). Oddly enough, the handscanner initiative did well at Norman, where both O&B and Progress got crushed (Unite with 77% of the vote). It definitely shows that we can take things directly to the students when Senate refuses to touch them and win.
Very good points. And whether its through initiatives or referenda, you can then try to force Unite to at least take a public stand on the questions, and turn it into an actual policy debate.
We will have to wait and see on all this – but the terrible fighting over on Duque’s blog was just getting out of hand for me.