We’re not exactly interested in flashy party platforms. What happens when you can’t follow through on a promise? Or what if an idea will cost UF students more money that it should have at first?
Our goal in this endorsement is not to pick a fight or to draw a line in the metaphorical and political sand.
We support the Students Party for the following reasons:
We believe they will use their voice on the Board of Trustees to do good for the university itself. It’s important to us that the UF Student Government president actually becomes a vocal advocate for the school’s interests. Although it’s hard to place full faith in anyone in that intimidating situation, we think the Students Party will act more in our best interest than its current opposition. Our representative on the Board of Trustees should be able to communicate the wants and needs of students rather than letting tuition get raised without a fight.
We believe they will work to use simple and logical solutions to solve issues on campus rather than using and inventing fancy technology. Although we understand the entire world is moving to a more digital phase of life, there are much more simple and cost-effective ways to improve campus life. For example, the ISIS alert system proposed by the Students Party makes sense to us, but the creation of a bunch of different apps proposed by the Swamp Party makes less sense. The Students Party also promises to seriously take a look at how SG is actually run and then make changes. There is no doubt in our minds that the current system is broken, and our fellow UF students are ill-informed about how things actually work.
However, both parties are making strides toward a more transparent student government. The semi-regular “town hall” meetings that would be held by the Swamp Party are idealistic, but the Students Party will be starting an administration without any prior dirty campaign tactics.
It’s also difficult for us to support the Students Party 100 percent because, comparatively, it seems less experienced than its opponents. We take into consideration, though, that this is because they have potentially not received the opportunity of experience and legacy the Swamp Party holds.
We very much appreciated the honesty and earnestness of Joselyn Rivas and Jayce Victor, two candidates on the Swamp Party’s ticket. We urge the Students Party to please work with them. Those two candidates should be included in SG as much as possible, as we believe they truly care about acting to the best of their abilities.
We loved the Swamp Party’s platform initiative to provide nutritional information in dining halls; that’s a smart way for people to make healthier choices. We also agree a more unified “clicker” system could be implemented campus-wide.
What we’d like, though, is less of a focus on flashy platform points and more of a sense of caring when it comes to representing UF students in the city and on the Board of Trustees.
