I originally wrote this for our college lab journal, but decided not to submit it because it was too mean.
Policy is perhaps the most important aspect of any election campaign, but at St Joseph’s College, what seemed to prove a candidate’s prowess was their ability to create as much noise as possible.
Amid the din of clanging plates and drums, I was idiotic enough to have volunteered to help put up posters for the Quiz Club all over campus. It was immediately apparent that our posters would be virtually invisible among the innumerable gaudily coloured campaign posters, braced with the most garish fonts known to man spelling out terrible puns and slogans that probably made sense at 2 AM.
While he may have even been the most capable candidate, one poor soul’s poster claiming he was standing for ‘PRESIDNT’ (with about a dozen ‘e’s added later) may have been a significant factor in his defeat. He, perhaps, still had a better chance than one presidential candidate whose impressive credentials included being a “gold medalist in painting”.
Other posters seemed to violate basic ethical codes by threatening potential voters. However much creative liberty may be encouraged here, soliciting votes with a black poster from which seemingly dead faces emerge is never a good idea.
Astonishingly, while the most atrocious grammar was allowed in a college where english is a compulsory subject, one witty poster that said “Jesse Pinkman wants you to vote for…” was taken down because, according to a staff member, “You cannot use characters who do crystal meth on television in your campaign (sic.)”.
Posters, of course, were the least irritating thing about this year’s campaign. Forget about having a chai with a couple of friends in peace. Entry into the canteen, it seemed, came at the price of having at least three candidates coming uncomfortably close to you and asking you to vote for them. There has to be a harassment clause somewhere for that kind of thing.
The cherry on the cake was, undoubtedly, ‘speech day’. Surprisingly, there was a fair amount of policy-talk, but it was nearly impossible to discern amongst the faff that some candidates produced, and the chants of their supporters. One forerunner even gestured at the audience to leave after he finished giving his speech. The same candidate’s supporters were crass enough to obey him, but not before drowning out the next candidate’s voice with their own campaign slogans.
In the end, the candidates who won were those who had the most minions literally carrying them over everyone else over the past week.
It is perhaps a bit unkind to say, as Douglas Adams did in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that, “Those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it”, but that may only be because the hullabaloo of a campaign was only week long.
Friday Afternoons 