Keep it clean
Last year, after Phil Robinson won the Student Association presidential race, something really appalling took place. After the election results were announced, some members of the campaign team that lost became very violent and started destroying property in the Marvin Center. For fear of what could happen to Robinson after witnessing how bad the post-results situation got, Robinson and his team waited in the Marvin Center until a University Police Department officer arrived who could safely escort Robinson and his girlfriend home. However, experiences like this throughout the SA Presidential campaign last year were not that uncommon.

I do not know how other SA presidential candidates feel, but I know that if I were to win the race for SA president this year I want to be able to feel that I can walk to my residence hall safely. There is no reason why the SA campaign had to get as dirty as it did last year, and there is also no reason why it has to get dirty this year. I plan to have strong disagreements with candidates regarding their differing positions with me on certain issues, but in the end I respect any student who is willing to put his name, money and time on the line to make a difference for every student at GW.

This year, I hope that every candidate will make a conscious effort to run clean and positive campaigns that focus on the issues that matter to GW students, such as SA reform, diversity, GW campus services and women’s issues. I know that, as a candidate myself, if I ever start to feel that the only way I can win this thing is to go negative I will remove my name from the ballot. So, candidates start your engines. Just don’t run anyone over.

-Graham N. Murphy
junior, SA presidential candidate

Work for us
I applaud The Hatchet for defending students against the Student Association (“Students deserve active advocacy,” Feb. 18, p.4). Candidates in this year’s election should be addressing ways to get the focus back on the students, not on their scandals. With the most number of students running since 1992, it is obvious that students are demanding a change of leadership in the SA.

The SA seems to have lost sight of the fact that their entire purpose is for the student body at large, not their elite few. They have the capacity to change things here at GW, and unfortunately they are wasting their time on scandal.

This year’s candidates may promise to reduce scandal of administrations past, but let us make sure that they follow through with their campaign promises and work for students instead of themselves.

-Jillian McKnight
sophomore

Winter wonderland?
Even the strongest opponents of GW in Foggy Bottom have to be grateful of the school’s snow removal efforts during the winter storms this season. While most residents have made no effort to clear their sidewalks after this weekend’s storm, leaving neighbors and students alike slipping and sliding home, anybody walking on a sidewalk in front of a GW property finds fully shoveled and salted walks, allowing everyone some degree of mobility to stores and especially the Metro station. Hats off to Facilities Management, who has kept our sidewalks safe all winter, even as the rest of the community has failed.

-Robert Kohlmeyer
junior