It’s the most wonderful time of the year again — a time for ASU students to resuscitate their brains from what was undoubtedly the craziest spring break ever, return to campus, and hunker down on important collegiate matters.
Important matters like student government elections.
Election season has arrived in Tempe, and campaigning started a stroke after midnight on Monday. And even though Tempe is not the campus I call home, I have not been able to avoid the customary barrage of Facebook invites to various campaign support groups for all the different presidential tickets.
Thankfully, candidates are using the information superhighway effectively to present the planks of their platforms in full detail.
One of the pressing issues found on the campaign trail this year? The ever-growing demand for a fall break, of course.
We just got done with spring break, so, sure, a fall break of similar length seems like a wonderful addition to our calendar. Never mind that such a break will run the risk of offsetting winter and summer session schedules — we’re hard-working students, damn it, and we want more vacation days.
And as if the candidates had read our minds, they are promising to fight for exactly that. Many of them, in fact.
I must have missed the memo, but I guess campaigns these days are designed to highlight the things you and your opponents agree on. This is far different from the conventional approach where candidates used campaigns to debate the issues on which they disagreed.
At last, the era of post-partisan politics is finally here.
What merit is there behind running on the promise of fall break? It reminds me of that kid in first grade who ran for class president and promised Kit Kats to everyone if he got elected. That kid would have won, if not for that clever other kid who one-upped him and promised Twix instead.
Twix kid won, but I never saw any crunchy chewy caramel chocolate.
Advocating for a fall break doesn’t even present an opportunity of choice between extremely similar chocolate bars — either you want fall break, or you don’t. Where those days fall on the calendar is pretty insignificant, because it’s still going to be popular with just about every student.
ASU students, as a general rule, don’t exactly come out en masse to vote in student government elections.
We can’t really be blamed, considering turnout at most other colleges and, well, real elections for real government offices are typically pretty dismal too.
But there’s something to be said for elevating the level of discourse above promising a universally popular idea that almost certainly will never come to fruition. Maybe then there will be some more participation in the elections.
Tempe candidates, give your constituents some more credit. You don’t have to promise a fall break to get elected. There are more pressing issues out there to campaign on, and many things to offer students besides candy.
Dustin wants more candy bar options. Send me some ideas at dustin.volz@asu.edu
