A teaser from “The Proxy Senator”
“The ruling party had certain ways. For one thing, candidates had to be picked to run. Ambitious political hopefuls had to be loyal soldiers and play by hierarchical rules. Many people had done exactly that and had never been chosen. We can’t allow morons to keep slating idiots.”
Michele Mitchell was writing about Chicago politics, but was certainly on to something, I thought shortly after reading this passage. This is exactly how UF works! After all, despite my record in the Senate, I was too independent-minded for many on the Gator party slating committee.
Apparently, Eric Keppler was the only one sticking up for me. He filibustered, but they persisted. “Ben’s just not qualified to run. He doesn’t campaign well – if at all. He’s too “valuable” to be a candidate. He knows too much for his own good. He won’t join the Circle, so he’s not to be trusted. And worse, he doesn’t bring any campus constituency to the table that we don’t already have. It’s not like he’s from a House we can steal from the Campus party.”
Too many negatives, but at least I prevailed in the long-run. Not letting me run could have hurt them by allowing the other side to grab a bit part of the Academic Council coalition.
But you know what? All that is butkiss, now. I’ve won – and even beat a well-known Gator Baseball player while doing so.
But I’ll still be tagged as not qualified to run for Senate next year. After all, most of their negatives still apply. Maybe I won’t bother to slate next time. It’s certainly not worth the hassle…
