Knowing When To Stop

Christian Duque and his unique brand of strident GDI-ism has now taken aim at Glenda Frederick, the Senate Secretary, a professional working for the SG office staff. Apparently, beyond getting an honorary tap from Florida Blue Key, among her alleged faults is being perceived as establishment-friendly, and/or having overt distaste for the current crew of GDIs in the Orange & Blue Party.

Whether true or not seems hardly the matter. Apparently unsatisified by their failure to impeach Treasurer Dayton – an act I could have told them would fail when the idea was started – these independents have now decided to pick on the professional staff whose institutional memory and strong record-keeping skills have kept SG in general and the Senate in particular humming all these years. They argue that a student can take the minutes inside Chambers and Glenda should keep her opinions to herself.

Maybe I’m a bit partial here. I helped create Glenda Day back in 2002 after seeing all the hard work she does: 1) taking minutes few people care to read with any detail; 2) typing up legislation in a systemic way which I know from personal experience no student could adequate attempt without making it a full-time job anyway; and 3) all the other administrative duties needed to keep the Senate office going.

Sure, Glenda may have personal opinions that take sides – but is there any evidence to show she’s hindered the side she disapproves of? Is this any more than sour grapes from a crew who should be focusing their fight on the students who are in charge for no better reason than because the greek houses are forced to vote and the rest of the student body aren’t?

I just don’t get it. If this is the kind of fight today’s GDIs want to have, maybe I’m no longer a GDI. Okay, I take that back – I like Glenda, but my committment to democracy will keep me an Independent in the UF sense of the word.

But seriously, they should really rethink their strategy here for the upcoming Fall elections. Like FBK’s turn toward publishing membership lists and outlining their activities and leadership on their website in a move to make themselves a bit more transparent, the GDIs will need to refashion their tactics and activities to keep relevant. But constantly picking fights at pieces of the structure while ignoring more concrete ideas that can make sense to the average voter (like banning the use of large tarps as campaign advertising) is not the right way to go.

These Duque-ish fights with individuals within SG were fine when trying to take a stand, build a brand, and get noticed by the Alligator. But now’s the time to convince the voters to let you take charge. And you don’t do that by picking fights with an adult employee, a professional secretary, simply because she was giving an honorary tap.

Being honorarily tapped by Florida Blue Key is not a mark of evil and should not be met with instant concern by the GDIs. There are far, far bigger fights to be waged, and waged against fellow students.