From Drunken Derelict to School Senator:

The Epic Tale of an Election

By

Rob Roy

 

My life before I was a politician

           I've always hated the go-getters. The fresh faced beautiful young men and women of America who have been craftily building their résumé since their first day of pre-school. Writing the thesis sentence of their personal statement for their college application in middle school. In high school they are always thinking of getting into college. In college they are always thinking of getting into the workforce. In the workforce they are always thinking about getting a management position. And then once they get into management they get old, retire and die never really enjoying a moment without worrying about the next. These people are boring.

           I didn't write my personal statement to get into college until I was twenty-one years old. The biggest reason why I didn't write it in high school was that I didn't know how. Neither of my parents went to college. No one told me how to apply for college so I never did until I started dating a girl who went to UC Berkeley and she showed me how easy it was. That's probably the only good thing she ever did for me. And then I got accepted into University of California in Davis.

           When I came to college I was surprised by how easy things were. I could get an A in a class without even really trying. This infuriated me. It made me realize that college is just another class barrier. It is just another way to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. And it is the rich kids who have the good résumés.

           I have a résumé that includes managing a few ice cream stores between high school and college. In the real world this is no big deal, but in college no one has this type of work experience because the majority of my peers just treat the university as an extension of high school. In high school these kids were in the student body governments and they planned the prom and homecoming. When I was in high school I was almost homecoming king. I campaigned for it. I told people to vote for me because every year some football player is made homecoming king and that shouldn't always be the case. They should vote for the long-haired, black leather jacket wearing trouble maker that hangs out with the druggies just for the sake of diversity.

           It doesn't change much once getting into college. I changed; I don't have long hair anymore. Now I have a mohawk. And I don't just where black; I wear all sorts of colorful eccentric clothing that gets odd stares from the normies . But the people in high school government run for school senate at the university level. But college government is different than high school mainly because in college there is money to be controlled.

           At UC Davis there is an origination called the Associated Students of University of California (ASUCD) that gets its financial support from mandatory student fees. The ASUCD has a student judicial, legislative, and executive branch. In fact, in many ways, it is the largest student run college government in the United States having a budget of nearly ten million dollars.

           Most student government elected officials have no real power and people only run so that they may put another title on their résumé, while people do that in the ASUCD the elected offices of the twelve senators as well as the president and vice president have a big say in the operation of things like the Coffee House (the on campus restaurant that makes nearly five million dollars annually), Unitrans (a bus system with an operation budget of over three million dollars), as well as thing like Tipsy Taxi (a evening service designed to curb drunk driving), the campus radio station (KDVS), Entertainment Council, festivals like Whole Earth Festival and Picnic Day as well as many other things. It is a conglomerate run by students.

           I read about the ASUCD Senate, the main governing body, in the school newspaper and I never really thought about getting that involved. It seemed like a system I could never be a part of. There was a type of person that ran the system and I wasn't the type. I voted in the elections but that was the extent of my participation.

           I was involved in other things like the campus radio station and I was a rather popular guy for putting on concerts at my house and doing various jackass art performances around town. A lot of people knew ho I was and I never really thought about using that popularity to break into the system of the ASUCD - that is until someone asked me to.

Run for office, sure, why not?

           It was December 20, 2004 when the Orwellians came to my house. I was having a concert in my living room. Five bands were playing and one of them was even from New York. The Orwellians and I had never really talked, and they had never been to a concert at my house; they heard about this one from the Internet. But they didn't come for the music. They came to ask me one thing. Do I want to be a senator?

            I call them the Orwellians because they are part of a UC Davis group called The Students for an Orwellian Society (SOS). They ran a nearly successful campaign in Fall 2004 as the Students for an Orwellian Student Senate Slate (SOSSS) in the ASUCD Senate Election. One of their candidates lost by a little over forty votes. As far as their ties to Orwell: they are a satirical group of people who make sarcastic flyers about current events in the newspeak language. These flyers often confuse people but generally make people think about relevant issues.

           Reverend Chad Van Schoelandt, one of the leaders of the Orwellians and a man who is usually described as looking like a cross between Jesus Christ and a werewolf, came up to me and handed me a bottle of blue liquid. He said, "We come bearing gifts."

            I looked at the bottle. Boone's Blue Hawaiian - perhaps some of the cheapest and worst wines on the planet. In fact I think by calling it wine every corpse in every graveyard in France must be rolling over. Chad had a big grin on his face when he handed me the bottle. He asked me point blank, "Have you ever thought of running for ASUCD Senate because we'd like you to run with us."

            I laughed and said, "Well, I've never really thought about but sure why not."

            Chad then told me about his plan to run as many people as he can find on one slate. He wants to have the craziest election Davis has ever seen.

            The candidate that ran with SOSSS that almost nearly won was Jonathon Leathers. Chad told me, "Jon didn't even campaign and he nearly won. Your name has alliteration. Of course you're going to win."

            On that December night when Chad Van Schoelandt told me this plan of running possibility twenty people for only six openings on the Senate

           I knew it was a crazy idea.

           He knew I had a reputation for being a jackass artist/clown so he said "we should turn the ASUCD into what it really is - a circus."

            When I laughed at his statement his girlfriend Marie said, "No. We are serious. Would your girlfriend and her twin sister want to run?"

What is a Slate? And is it something you should hate?

           Slates are essentially student political parties. The two major ones are Student Focus and L.E.A.D. (which stands for Leadership, Empowerment, Activism and Determination). They both have been around for years: LEAD since 2000, and Student Focus since 2003, although members of Student Focus used to be in a slate called UNITE which started in 2001; they changed their name because they thought Student Focus sounded better.

           ASUCD Elections, since 2003, has used a system called choice voting. So if twenty-three different candidates run for senate a voter can rank their order of preference for each candidate. This is a system that helps independents instead of political parties because it assures everyone's vote gets counted.   Instead of a winner take all system, candidates are mathematically eliminated round by round and their votes are given to whoever-voted-for-them's second preference. This choice voting system gives the voters a senate that best represents the voting population.

           When I compare UC Davis politics to national politics I see Student Focus as the Republicans and LEAD as the Democrats. The irony is that Student Focus may very well have candidates that are Democrats and LEAD may have candidates that are Republicans but those beliefs do not reflect their capacity as an ASCUD Senator because the position has no control over national or global policy.

           Traditionally the Davis College Republicans (DCR) endorse Student Focus. Although DCR would disagree with my reasoning I think Student Focus is the George Bush of campus politics.   Student Focus candidates will tell the student body that they won't raise student fees and then raise student fees by using the revenue from those fees to buy something the campus does not need like a fire truck that doesn't work or plasma screen televisions for the Coffee House. More directly Student Focus was the slate that pushed by UC Davis' movement to Division One sports which in turned raised student fees hundreds of dollars a year. They are the slate of the pretty and wealthy people. They fit into the clichés of the rich daddy's-girl sorority sisters that have never had to work a day of hard labor in their lives and the fraternity brothers that have everything in their lives handed to them. I once heard Student Focus Senator Cari Ham stand on the quad and yell, "I'm a spoiled bitch. I buy $200 purses like they're nothing." Hearing this made my skin cringe because I am poor. Not poor in the sense that I am a student and therefore have no money but in that my parents are poor and can not afford to give me any money for tuition, let alone spending money.           

           Student Focus is also very guilty of cronyism. In November of 2004 LEAD Senator Adam Barr resigned for personal resigns - mainly he could not afford to be living off the Senator's $50 a week salary. Cari Ham ran with Student Focus against Adam Barr in the Winter 2004 election. After losing the election Ham was appointed as Chief of Staff for ASUCD President and member of Student Focus Kalen Gallagher. Where the cronyism comes in is that Cari Ham was appointed to replace Adam Barr on the senate but the problem with that is that the people who chose Adam Barr as their top choice for senate were the most likely to choose Cari Ham as their last choice for senate. Therefore making Cari Ham the complete opposite of Adam Barr with an entirely different constituent base. What Student Focus did was turn a seat of opposition into a seat of support even though it was against the will of the electorate.

            LEAD also has their shortcomings. They have a history of voting for things the students don't need because they have a long history as a slate so it makes sense for them to have blemishes. In the 2002, the last time LEAD held the executive office, LEAD President Tiqula Bledsoe declared himself the "Black Caesar of ASUCD" as well as saying he was "half man, half amazing." He embezzled money out of ASUCD for parking tickets, gifts for his friend, even limousine rentals. And when the student body found out LEAD was punished, only winning one out of six seats in the next senate election; as well as going years without an executive seat.

           LEAD also has many members that are involved in Greek life but their traditional constituents are the ethnic and liberal groups on campus. LEAD's platform issues are more attainable - such as a pre-paid tipsy-taxi card and more wireless internet available on campus. Student Focus has a platform made up of abstract ideas like they will "serve with integrity," hold ourselves to a higher standard," or do things like "protect your right to party."

           Because Friends Urging Campus Kindness thought that we could work with LEAD much easier that Student Focus we chose to endorse their candidates Caliph Assagai and Darnell Holloway for president and vice president. We considered briefly having our own candidate run for office. We thought maybe Chad could run just as a gag. We thought that I may have a chance at winning the presidential seat but we knew that I was practically a shoe-in for winning a senate seat so we went with the odds. After all, political decisions are just another form of gambling.

           A lot of people asked me throughout the campaign why I was running on a slate instead of independently. The biggest reason for slates is that they strengthen the team effort of the campaign. If I could play my cards right and get elected then I might as well help someone else play their cards right and get elected.   Also, I could have some likeminded people sitting on the table with me if I win. Senate meetings can last eight hours so I figured I might as well be spending Thursday night with some friends.

Hello, I am an Official Candidate

            One of the first things we did was post on two popular Internet communities in Davis called LiveJournal.com and DavisWiki.org proclaiming our candidacy for Senate. And of course we asked if anyone would like to run with us.

            I even bought a piece of plywood for fifteen dollars at the hardware store and spray painted it so it would be a billboard for my campaign and then put it on the roof my house which is on a busy street with several bus lines passing by it nearly every hour.

            At first no one took us seriously because Chad had named our slate Friends Urging Campus Kindness just to tempt the school newspaper to shorten it into an acronym. It is also a publicity tool to cause controversy but when I started telling people in slate name in its entirety most people didn't even register the possible acronym. But if the four words were written on piece of paper, and each word in the slate name was given its own line, it was obvious what the acronym was.

            Of course because of our acronym a lot of people didn't take us seriously at first. Even my fiancé wasn't sure if I was serious. But very quickly everyone would learn that we were very serious.

            On the first day of school, weeks before anyone else would be campaigning, Chad and I walked around the quad at lunch time approaching political groups and telling them we were running for ASUCD Senate. We asked when a good time would be for us to come and talk to their meetings. Chad proclaimed, "Campaigning early just makes sense. Why try to sell people on yourself while everyone else is doing the same thing. Beat your opponents to the punch."

            When Chad ran into someone he even just barely knew, maybe he didn't even know their name; he would ask them if they were interested in running. Many people laughed it off but a few said they would think about it. I began talking about it to my friends and a few of them said they were interested also. My friend Aisha even said, "I'll run for senate of it gets my picture in the paper."

A History of Shady Activity  

            I started attending every senate meeting. Chad and the rest of the Orwellians who chose me to run knew that if I were able to say, "I attended every senate meeting" it would mean that I was definitely a serious candidate.

            The first senate meeting I attended was one surrounded by controversy because it would include the swearing in of candidates that were accused of campaign violations. In fact in the Fall 2004 elections there were lots of violations going on - mainly to the democratic process.

            The controversies and scandals surrounding the Fall 2004 elections would certainly act as a precursor to the Winter 2005 election that I ran in.

           One of the controversies was that the Elections Committee edited Chad Van Schoelandt's candidate statement in which he said, "We promise that we will not embezzle more than the other candidates, and we will not steal $356.76 of books from the UCD bookstore, unlike a certain Student Focus representative last year." The Elections committee is a student run appointed group of a five people who thought putting on their résumé that they were on the ASUCD Elections Committee was a good thing. Naturally the spoils of war go to the victor so Student Focus, being the slate with the most power at the beginning of the school year, appointed the Elections Committee. Coincidentally the "certain Student Focus representative" is James Ackerman, who is dating a member of the Elections Committee so naturally she wanted to edit any statements that would make her boyfriend look bad. The only problem was that editing the statements was illegal.

            The Elections Committee chair, Christine Schachter, who looks like an over bred collie with beady judging eyes, sent an email to Chad citing ASUCD Government Codes that stated "The procedures for printing copies SHALL BE DETERMINED by the ASUCD Elections Committee and shall be announced to all candidates for office." They continued their explanation specifying "'The ASUCD Elections Committee MAY publish....' meaning we are not required to, but instead to choose to assist candidates in their election process; granted all material is approved by the committee."

            Chad Van Schoelanndt appealed the decision to edit his statement. And after the election was over the Campus Judicial Board ruled in Van Schoelandt's favor. To quote Donald Cohen-Cutler, an ASUCD Senator at the time of the ruling, "Chad and the Campus Judicial Board tore the Elections Committee a new asshole."

            It can easily be assumed that the Elections Committee does not like Chad Van Schoelandt.

           Because Chad chose me to run for senate it can easily be assumed the Elections Committee does not like me.

            The other the scandal that happened in the Fall 2004 elections included three Student Focus senators who were accused of campaigning in the dorms - which is highly illegal because it breaks university housing policy. The Elections Committee refused to do anything because they argued that the dorms are not part of its jurisdiction because they are not on campus, even though the dorms are called on-campus housing.

            This controversy surrounded Nafeh Malik, Brianna Haag, and Sean Ruel.   The California Aggie , the student run newspaper, even rescinded its endorsements of the candidates. Columnist Russ Fagaly called for all three candidates to step down before any of them were even sworn in.

            But all three were sworn in and took office despite the controversy.

            All three were sworn in despite complaints to Student Judicial Affairs.

            All three were sworn in despite public outcry.

            The system was set up for cheating. In fact ASUCD Vice-President Paloma Perez was quoted in The California Aggie as saying, "Many are guilty of campaigning in the dorms, even I've campaigned in the dorms."

            This is the government that I was trying to break into.

Building a Political Army

            Chad Van Schoelandt and I built our arsenal of candidates up to seventeen people.

           Of course there was Chad and myself. We were the first candidates the get an organized campaign going. By the first week of school I had made a stencil to spray on T-shirts that said "Friends Urging Campus: Vote Rob Roy # 1 for Senate." And it had a rendition of my face on it. I bought some T-shirts from a thrift store for 50 cents a piece and spray painted them with the stencils. We also asked people to bring us shirts they didn't want or wear anymore and we would spray paint the stencil on them during lunch and just give them the shirt back. Therefore making a T-shirt for our campaign at cost of a few cents for spray paint per shirt.

           The other candidates we had in our arsenal of democracy varied from Robert Baron, an ASUCD Commission Recorder who had previously run three times for senate. Despite his zen appearance, always wearing a turquoise sun necklace and sandals, he had his microphone shut off during the Fall 2004 senate candidate's forum for saying, "This is bullshit" among other profanities.

           We had Pedro Hernandez a recent transfer to UC Davis from Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz where he served as vice-president. He ran in Fall 2004 and lost. He is a devoted vegan and won't let you forget it.

           We had Scott Ritchie a pale and humorous Republican who always seemed to be nervous but smiling.

           We had Jon D'Souza a sharply dress man active in the gay community on campus as well as his roommate Dan Reilly.

           We had my friends Aisha Nouh and Alan Rae who were running simply because I asked them too.

           We had people I didn't even know like Andrew Bianchi and a friend of his (who never told me her name). They were both first years at UCD and Andrew was interested in running because he didn't have a heavy class load so he might as well run for office.

           We had one of my closest friends, Kristen Birdsall, a dark haired indie kid who our campaign manager Brent Laabs, said would get the hot-or-not voters, was an old friend of mine and decided to run because she was just as pissed off with how the senate runs itself as I was.

           We had Joseph Stewart, a local activist for choice voting on the city level. He always has a smirk on his face as if he knows something about life no one else does.

            We had Paul Ivanov, an attractive Russian born computer science major who is one of the most popular men on campus. Since he was a Summer Advisor in 2004 practically every freshman knows him.

            We had Gavin Jensen, a co-worker of mine at the local Ben & Jerry's that always has a grin on his face and a good idea on the tip of his tongue.

            We had Mohammad "Yahya" Rouhani, a big friendly faced man who is perhaps one of the most passionate speakers I know.

            We had Teresa Kenny, another good friend of mine that was the general manager of KDVS for the 2003-2004 school year. Although she is a stoner she is quite a hard worker when she puts her mind to it.

            Chad talked people into running with us and when the conversation was over and they walked away he would forget their name but still include them in the candidate tally.

            In the last election the Elections Committee Chair Christine Schachter told Chad that he couldn't campaign or say he was an official candidate until he turned in the necessary 125 signatures to be placed on the ballot. Seeing as that date wasn't until early November he refused to wait. During his complaint hearing with the Elections Committee in December the Campus Judicial Board determined that not letting someone say that they are an official candidate is a violation of the first amendment.

            We created quite a team. In addition to the candidates we had many campaign managers and advisors. Most importantly we had Paul "the Libertarian" Amnuaypayoat who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2003, Chris "Twiggie" Rood who ran unsuccessfully for Senate with Chad in 2004, and Brent Laabs a graduate student and one of the founding members of both the Davis chapter of Students for an Orwellian Society. They were masters of creating controversial flyers and they had been making flyers with my pictures on it and stapling them to bulletin boards by the first week of school. Some of the flyers said my qualifications, and some simply said things like "Rob Roy: Serous Agenda. Funny hair."

            The idea behind having so many people involved is that it would create a buzz on campus. The sheer of number candidates we were intending to run assured that the slate would get attention - that and the fact the slate's acronym was FUCK.  

If you don't like the rules: Re-write them

            Based on the insanity of the Fall 2004 election which had issues of erroneous censorship as well as candidates that were blatantly cheating and getting away with it Chad and Brent, as well as a few other people that included ASUCD Senators, had been working on a senate bill that would fix a lot of the problems in the government codes that were ambiguous on the problematic issues that were relevant in the Fall 2004 election.

            Chad and Brent asked me to attend what they called a legislation party - which was essentially a workshop in which they wrote and edited the legislation. They knew that if I was able to say I wrote legislation for the ASUCD that it would make me a stronger candidate so they wanted me to help.

            The basic run down of the bill we were writing was that it defines the parameters of physical campaigning by stating where a candidate could and could not campaign. And the places where a candidate could not campaign are in the dorms, computer labs, anywhere closer than hundred horizontal feet away from the computer labs, or next to someone who is currently voting on their mobile internet device while they are on campus.

            Another thing the senate bill we were writing would do was define what was libel, slander, or obscenity. This is so the Elections Committee would have a rule set in place that they would have to adhere to before editing a candidate's statement.

            When the legislation was submitted to the senate it ended up being split into two bills: one bill for the voting parameters and another for the editing. The parameters bill passed after much debate but the editing one was totally gutted and changed so Chad withdrew it from consideration because he did not want his name attached to a bill that did not do what he originally intended it to do.

            But I was able to say I was a co-author of a piece of legislation that was passed by the ASUCD Senate so I am an election reform activist.

Controversial Candidates: Controversial Quitters

            While attending Senate meetings I was able to make a name for myself as a truly serious candidate. The senate minutes listed me as attending every meeting and my name was hard to miss because the acronym F.U.C.K. was always placed in parenthesis to the right of it.

            At the second senate meeting I went to Nafeh Malik and Sean Ruel shocked everyone by resigning their seats. Malik pointed out that due to the controversy that surrounded him over the campaigning the dorms issue he did not want to be scapegoated. He said that people higher up on the ladder in the power structure of Student Focus told him to go to the dorms. He knew it was against the rules but the people in Student Focus said that no one paid attention to that rule and it was never enforced. Malik also said that he watched elected officials who were sitting at the senate table that very moment smoke marijuana and be under the influences of it while attending ASUCD budget hearings in 2004.

           Immediately after resigning Malik walked out of the room and I was the first to follow. While he was wiping the light residue of tears from his eyes I shook his hand and said, "that was perhaps one of the most badass speeches I have ever seen." He laughed and through his British Muslim smile he said he was going downstairs to play video games.

           While I stood in the hallway talking to Nafeh, Sean Ruel was resigning, claiming his grades were so bad in the fall school quarter that his parents would no longer give him and money to live and he could not continue as a senator.

           A recess was quickly called and everyone looked at each with a bewildered face. The people from my slate were all wondering if Brianna Haag would also resign but the first thing she said when she had a chance was that she was not resigning.

           Malik and Ruel would not be the last officials from the ASUCD to resign during the winter 2005 quarter. Senate meetings would prove to be rather dramatic and entertaining - like a combination CSPAN and the Jerry Springer show.

            On one particular Senate meeting I was able to speak out against wasteful spending when the senate considered buying a new banner to announce senator office hours. During the discussion of the bill authored by Brianna Haag that allocated money for the purchase of a new vinyl banner for senate office hours it was revealed to the rest of the senate by Donald Cohen-Cutler that there was already two existing signs for senate office hours. He claimed to have found them while cleaning out the office. Chad Van Schoelandt pointed out that the new banner would be a waste of money because of the newly discovered pre-existing signs. Also, the sign would cost $80.

           It was late January and I had recently spray painted a towel with the phrase "Friends Urging Campus Kindness" and began having office hours on the quad asking people what they want the ASUCD Senate to do for them. Our platform is the people's platform so I wanted the people to write it. (Which is also why we posted it on DavisWiki.org and allowed everyone to edit our platform.)   One of our goals was to make the government more accessible so while the senate discussed whether or not they should wear name tags and have office hours on the quad I sat next to a bag with the office hours towel, listening to the discussion while wearing a nametag proclaiming me a senate candidate.

           In public discussion of the vinyl banner bill Chad said, "Eighty dollars may be a small amount of money considering the ten million dollar budget but it is still a waste of money. Rob Roy could make a sign for the senate extra cheap."

           Another issue on the sign was that vinyl is bad for the environment. Environmental Policy and Planning Commission Chair showed the senate the canvas sign she used for her commission and the senate still chose to purchase the brand new vinyl sign. The purchase of the sign would serve as one of the many fiscal irresponsibilities of the senate and the reason why a new group of people need to emerge on campus and take the senate back for the people.

If you're in it to win don't any waste time: learn to rhyme

            Early in my campaign I decided on what I thought was a brilliant tactic to reach out to people who normally do not vote in campus elections. I would make a rap video about campus politics.

            One of Chad Van Schoelandt's early plans for me was that I would attend the senate candidate's forum wearing my Ku Klux Klown costume in which I had worn while heckling conservatives. It is a Klansman robe and hood that is tye-dyed. When I wear it I hop around on a pogo stick and yell about how I taking over the KKK and making them accepting of every ethnicity and sexual preference. The last time I preformed as the Ku Klux Klown was at "Conservative Coming Out Day," which was a day when conservatives came out of the closet as being of conservatives. They claimed as a minority on college campuses they needed an event to show they are proud of their beliefs. Along with my performance students had made a giant red, white and blue phallus and signs with pictures of Hitler that said, "Conservative like me."

            Chad actually wanted me to wear this in public during the campaign as well as be a serious candidate. He reiterated his belief that we should turn the senate into a circus but I told him that I only wear the Klan outfit as a protest costume.

            I did tell Chad that I would wear a pink suit to the senate candidate's forum and so before I made my music video I bought a suit for a grand total of two dollars at a thrift store and spray painted it pink and wore in my video and later at the forum.

            For my music video I recorded all of the audio in KDVS Studio A. As a KDVS DJ of two years I was allowed to use the equipment at no cost. I used the opening riff of Ac Dc's "Back in Black" as the beat and wrote lyrics that were both humorous and informative. I filmed the video with my good friend Scott Biggart, who runs DavisCoeds.com, in a classroom in Olsen Hall on the UC Davis Campus. The room had several chalkboards which I used to write statements on throughout the video. My main goal for the video would be that it had to be entertaining so the song itself must be entertaining but I also wanted it to be relevant. The first thing I did was establish who I was.

            I'm known to many people as the Party King of Davis - in fact Jenn de la Vega, an ASUCD Senate table member as the chair of the Gender and Sexuality Commission, claims to be one of the people to crowned me as the party king. Everyone that knows me and everyone that loves me knows I have had done many questionable and disgusting things such as drink my own urine and light my pubic hair on fire in front of video camera. There was no way that I would be able to hide my controversial past so I chose to expose it. Some of the first lines of my campaign rap song mention my party tricks but I quickly move into my run for senate. I detail a need for better police student relations citing my own noise violation tickets as a reason why I have a vested interest in the subject.

            I then began establishing my qualifications. Stating that I have been a high ranking manger at Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream for over five years and have a proven history of being trusted with other people's money. To quote myself: For shizzle. I don't embizzle . I also pointed out that I have been a DJ at KDVS for several years as well as having a stint as the Underwriting Director

            But I do have a large skeleton in my closet that I could not ignore. I was arrested in early 2004 for possession of stolen property. If I did not reveal the circumstances of the arrest before anyone else did I knew that it would appear to be scandalous so I included it in the song - beating any of my naysayers to the punch-line. As I rapped, "I was once busted for riding around on a bike I found tossed out on the side out the street" I knew the listeners would understand. Davis has hundreds of abandoned bicycles since more people ride bikes in Davis, pre capita, than any other place in America. I was arrested on ridiculous charges because the bike had been abandoned for days around the corner from my house when I finally picked it up and started riding it around. I described the bike by saying, "It had flat tires, rusted brake wires and all the paint was scraped off it. It had no registration tags. I thought nobody wanted it."

           I would much rather be honest and tell people up front that I once plead no-contest to a misdemeanor account of larceny than have to worry about someone exposing me throughout the campaign. But what I also did was turn the situation around citing my "funny hair and funny clothes" as the reason "I should have known I can't be out past 10 pm in Davis without getting arrested." But it also allowed me the opportunity to say, "don't worry about me stealing $356.76 in textbooks I may look a funny but I ain't no crook." At the time I made the music video I had no idea that Elections Committee member Jamie Phelps was dating former senator, and convicted thief, James Ackerman.

            I then moved into establishing why people should vote in ASUCD elections, mainly relying on money as the motivation because students "pay over hundred dollars a year. And since the budget is bigger than nine million [they] might as well have a say in the spending."

            And then I did some shit talking. Pointing out the ways that the Student Focus has wasted student money. Buying a fire truck for Aggie Pack   (the sports booster organization) that has a tube sock cannon attached to the top was something I cited as fiscal irresponsibility.

           During the campaign Student Focus president Kalen Gallagher wrote a bill that gave AGTV, the on campus television network that much of the campus would agree has not proven it self, $33,000 in order to purchase some computers and two plasma screen televisions that they want to hang in the Coffee House. Practically every student I talked to about this was disappointed with the senate for approving the bill. But they passed the bill after I had recorded my music video so I was not able to include it.

            Continuing on the anti Student focus rant I flashed a piece of paper in front of the screen that said "They campaigned in the dorms. We campaign to reform."

           Then I my cited another anti-student action of ASUCD President at the time and Student Focus figurehead Kalen Gallagher did: he vetoed something called the two thirds fiscal approval amendment. The amendment would have required two-thirds of the voting population to approve a raise in ASUCD fees. Gallagher was quoted in The California Aggie as saying his reason for vetoing the bill was that it "would render almost any fee referendum obsolete." Essentially it would make it too hard to raise student fees. After the veto ASUCD Senator Thomas Lloyd tried to make a compromise, reducing the total to sixty percent, but the senate with a Student Focus majority at the time refused to do so. Allowing the veto to stand allowed me to rap that Student Focus "wants to make it as easy as can be to raise your student fees."

           While on the topic of student fees I also repeated a talked point from the campaign in the rap saying, "Student Focus has a history of repeatedly breaking the public trust."

           I didn't want to only attack Student Focus because there was another slate we were running against. Between LEAD and Student Focus, LEAD is definitely the lesser of two evils and that is why Friends Urging Campus Kindness endorsed LEAD for the presidential ticket. My attacking LEAD with too much fervor would reflect badly upon my own party for choosing them as the president. So I decided to attack them on an issue that I felt they were abandoning their traditional constituents on: the military.

           I attacked them for having an ROTC member on their slate. In the past LEAD has been the group that gets the endorsement of the liberal anti-war groups on campus so having an active member of the ROTC on their slate, someone that says the military should have more presence on campus is a betrayal of their constituents so in a political move I felt if I took a jab at LEAD for doing this I could pick up support from the people they abandoned. So I included a verse in the rap about LEAD being "buddy-buddy with ROTC." One thing I did not want to do was come out against the troops because I understand that a lot for people sign up for military service to pay for college. But what I did want to come out against is military recruiters because I think it is an inherently a dishonest profession and they do not belong on college campuses.

           In hindsight I am slightly regretful for implying that LEAD was pro-war by writing LEAD=ROTC and the ROTC=PROWAR? on the chalkboards behind me in the video but it was LEAD's political choice so they left themselves vulnerable. In the end of my short rant about LEAD and the military I included a shot of myself dancing in front of a giant chalkboard American flag while I said in my rap that "I'm still a patriot."

           I then moved into what I wanted to do. My platform. Citing that I wanted to put staplers in the computer labs and the ASUCD budget online, as well as try to get Unitrans or tipsy taxi to have evening routes on the weekend, and have senate office hours on the quad.

           I also called out the senate, asking them to stop embezzling vacations from the students. What I meant by this is to stop having expensive retreats in Tahoe when the students can save money by having retreats in Davis, and by that I mean camping on University property in West Davis. That would be free to the students.   Besides the expensive price tag of the retreat, what also offends me is that I have heard from people who have attended the retreat as ASUCD unit directors that senators get drunk and stoned and just generally party on the students tab. This is unacceptable and I felt like most of the campus population was unaware of this activity so I decided to expose it.

           I ended the video by suggesting that I would like a miniature golf course on the UC Davis campus. While I would like one I think everyone understood that I was being humorous with that statement so I didn't feel that if elected as I senator I would have an overwhelming responsibility to come through with that particular campaign promise because it really wasn't a promise but rather a joke.

           And in the last few seconds of the video I reminded people where to vote and who to vote for, listing off the eighteen names of candidates that have expressed interest in running with us. I premiered the video at the student run Robot Media film festival in late January before any forms were due that would place my name on the ballot. Essentially we all were official candidates because we said we were. Not one of us were going to be on the ballot for certain.

Read Part Two