Are National Elections like School Government Elections, or is it the other way around. Kira Schiavone give us first hand knowledge of how running for office can become a spectacle in her school and how it reflects life in the real world...

September 21st, 2007

Well, school just started and we had all our elections, so it’s time for my annual diatribe! I didn’t get elected to anything this year, but I’ve been putting thought into it again and it pains me to see people make these same mistakes year after year. We’re a microcosm of the real world, so by examining this I make the point about the real thing.

Running on majority issues works. Running on majority issues should not work. There should be no running on specific issues, because it leaves open whatever else might come up to the personal opinions of the representative, and that might not agree with you at all. Yet each time, I see people vote for those who run with their specific issues, except for one notable case when the guy running was disliked. It isn’t working. Understand that.

I run in each election with the promise that I will represent the opinion of my dorm, because that’s what the person in the office is for- being the representative of the dorm. I find there to be a certain amount of irony, because we are a microcosm, that caring about the constituents won’t win you the election, particularly in this day and age when we’re all whining about how no one cares about the constituents. Then again, no one actually runs who cares about the constituents in this day and age either.

The people who run for these positions with specific issues annoy me. Last year, we had people who ran for specific issues, and I had serious misgivings about one of them and a reserved confidence in the other. The misgivings turned out to be accurate and the confidence misplaced, when I was told that the reason we were blindsided by a major issue was that our representatives frequently didn’t show up to the meetings. The issue hadn’t been expected to come up and wasn’t part of anyone’s campaign, but we all had very strong feelings about it. We lost the chance to make a change because it was finalized before we heard about it. I put the blame for this entirely on the elected officials.

This year, we again elected people who ran on issues, although one of them began her speech with the phrase “I agree with Kira.” (We don’t often have people who write their speeches ahead of time- or are even intending to run. This can work out well, as it did last year when I was nominated for dorm board, or it can work out poorly.) But her speech still mixed issues with my ideals. I again have limited confidence in one representative, although somewhat more than I had last time and severe misgivings about the other. Hopefully I’ll be half right in the other direction this year and have everyone work out well. Well, there’s my yearly diatribe- and I’ll try to write more this year. Look forward to something about the Jena 6 within the next week or so.

Kira Schiavone is a high school student who's working on becoming a professional writer, and enjoys reading and writing rants for the Fedora Chronicles.

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