It’s the most annoying time of the year.
That’s right, it’s campaign season. All of a sudden, people you haven’t heard from since freshman year are sending you texts asking you to vote for people you’ve never heard of in your life. There are puppies on the Union plaza and peppy little faces shoving stickers down your throat.
As an underclassman, I was never bothered by these things, but as I’ve matured here and become not just someone who watches campaigns but helps run them, I’ve come to see a much bigger issue at play.
This year I somehow managed to know everyone running in the personality elections. In my opinion, every person running is a deserving candidate of good rapport and high moral standing and would be a deserving winner. But this election isn’t about who has the best character or who has done the most service or who will best represent the university. This election is about who has the cutest sticker and who has the best sign. Somewhere in all that pageantry, the identities of the people running get muddled and, as the great philosopher Gucci Mane would say, “lost in the sauce.”
What I find most troublesome about this election is the rubric by which people are judged. Those awesome posters that boast 3.9 GPAs and showcase all of the involvement that has prepared a person to run in such a campaign are rarely the deciding factor on election day.
You need puppies (or alpacas). Snow cones are a serious bonus. Stickers that perfectly complement a grove dress are crucial. And if you can get every single person you’ve ever met to plaster your face all over Facebook, you’re a shoo-in.
Too many people are judged at face value, and that is the real issue at hand here. I had an eighth grade science teacher who taught me the importance of believing half of what I see and none of what I hear, and that’s the principle that I’d like to appeal to here. It’s dangerous to judge people only at face value. And maybe in a personality election it’s harmless and no one gets hurt, but there’s a presidential election coming up. And I’d be remiss without mentioning that getting to know the candidates is critical.
I’ve been in far too many conversations where people support Ben Carson because he separated conjoined twins, or Donald Trump, because he says literally whatever pops up in his head.
Neither of these qualities, I believe, qualify a person to be the president of the United States.
Whom we elect not only matters today, but also will effect us for years to come, so let’s be deliberate in our decision. When we choose the person who will lead our country, let us judge him or her on their merit and not on their gimmicks, and when we choose the people who will represent our university, let us judge them by their character and not by their stickers.
Camille Walker is a senior public policy leadership major from Tupelo, Mississippi.
