Illusions Spring Forth

To the men and women campaigning for delegate positions, and to those wishing to serve on Academic Senate, this is my plea to you: be sure of yourselves and the image you will be projecting because both will be preserved in the minds of voters as your true self.

To you all, I have bared witness to your mockery of the electoral process for too long and feel strongly that cheap chicanery, gimmickry, off-colour humour and divergent hackery will get you everywhere, but at the cost of substance and value. You few and proud will be responsible for subverting the tradition of vying for office, soon making complex campaigns and issues simple enough for the public tastes until all that remains is rhetoric pablum.

You will do this because you will insist, as so many have, to insult the process by removing all aspects of platform and the virtue of new ideas. You will emblazon posters with sharp colours and thick-wit catch phrases, perhaps highlighting baseless credentials or promising virtues you will be unable to uphold. Never once will you dignify your future office by stating your opinion or by making clear your strategy for improvement of infrastructure or policy. You will simply ask for your peers' votes in the mere hope that you are recognizable enough for broad appeal. You will not worry about work ethic or job qualification, nor will you be cognizant of issues your peers are facing. You will lack the foresight to peer past convocation. You will insult the intelligence of the electorate by assuming voters are dim and uninformed, with no desire to be greater than they are now. You will simply appear to disappear.

Dear campaigners, head my warning: you will find yourselves celebrating victory in a week's time and though it will feel sweet, its glow ripe and warm with acceptance, the fruits of your labour will be hollow. You will have succeeded without trying to challenge your voters and for that, you will have learned that stagnation is a virtue and that belief is illusory. You will be a fraud whose acclaim is for naught.

I challenge you, in the days remaining before election, to opine about something dear to your heart. I insist you be honest about your intentions about this campaign, that you answer the simple question: what do you want to get out of your role as delegate or senator? If you seek fortune, so be it. If you seek goodwill, be fair enough to state it. If you seek kinship, may you find it. Do not bear false witness, though, or judge your peers unable to decipher sleight of hand for underneath your prestidigitation may lie only stupidity or poor judgment.

And should you bear false witness, and claim yourself to be without merit, you will indeed rise to your own occasion and fail your peers in a most drastic way.