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Best/King take ASG throne
Election officials express pride at increased voter turnout – 570 votes cast
The Advocate
Bradley Best and John King won the Associated Student Government presidential election last week by a count of 352 to 218 over Danielle Pannell and Rae Peres, much to the surprise of several ASG and Student Activities Board members present at the Spring Dinner Dance.
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“I am so stunned and shocked right now. I didn’t think I had a chance to win,” said President-elect Best to the crowd after the announcement at the ASG Spring Dinner Dance in Portland. “I don’t even have a speech prepared. This is a real underdog story and a great victory.”
Director of Student Life Robert Cox said the best part of the election was the number of voters.
“The students have spoken,” said Cox. “They selected the candidates that they thought would be best for the school. It’s great to see such a huge turnout.”
Current ASG President Janine Johnston and Elections Committee Chair Jennifer Rogers similarly said that a high number of voters was the priority of the election.
“The priority is the turnout, because it means people are getting involved,” said Johnston. “I wish them all the luck in the world for next year and I’ve already prepared a packet that I’ll be going over with them. I wanted to help out the winners as much as I possibly can and this is the best way I know of as far as immediacy goes.”
Vice President-elect King said he never wanted to cling too much to the idea of winning office because he and Best knew it would be a tough road.
“It was sort of like ‘if we win, awesome, but it won’t kill me if we don’t,’” said King. “I wanted to stay loose throughout the debates and campaigning process and make sure that I didn’t lose any friends, but instead made them. I’m very surprised with the outcome, but I’m very happy and we know that the real journey has started. We’re ready to take the next step.”
Initially, Pannell and Peres did not make contact with Best and King, but instead spoke to and were consoled by their supporters, many of whom were as emotional as they were.
“I had the chance to congratulate Bradley and John after the ceremony and gave them both hugs,” Pannell said Monday. “I gave Bradley a book about leadership. We aren’t friends yet, but hopefully we can become friends while working with him in ASG this year.”
Pannell said she was not bitter about the loss, but instead her heavy emotions at the Spring Dinner Dance were due to the fact that “it was over.”
“I’m not bitter. It was a great experience,” said Pannell. “I think they did a great job campaigning. Hopefully I will get a position in the executive cabinet and learn from their different styles of leadership.”
Pannell and Peres both said they were surprised at the large margin of victory.
“They won by, like, 166 votes. I only have 15 weeks experience, I know that, but when they announced the 300 and some-odd votes I thought for sure we’d won,” said Pannell. “I had a lot of support there, so that was most surprising.”
Best said Tuesday that before the announcement was made, he muttered “Danielle, Danielle” under his breath because he was sure that she’d won.
“When they announced that I’d won, there was no noise at all,” Best said. “The room appeared just as stunned as I was. You could have heard a pin drop when the
announcement was made. I think the only people applauding were at my table.”
After the announcement was made, Peres said she would not be returning to the ASG or SAB next year, but has since “smoothed things over” with Best.
“I was still emotional over the situation,” said Peres Wednesday. “I feel like we should have won the election, so I didn’t want to have anything to do with Bradley. We have since smoothed things over.”
Peres said Wednesday that she hopes “they know what they got themselves into” in regards to becoming president and vice president and said she would be re-applying for director of diversity, the position she currently holds.
Since the announcement of Best and King’s victory, there has been “drama going around ASG from sore losers,” according to two members of ASG who preferred to remain anonymous.
As recently as Monday, a group was created on Facebook called “The Let’s-Watch-Bradley-Best-Ruin-ASG Support Group.” The group mandate reads as follows: “This is a Support Group for all those who were deleted by Bradley Best from his friends list. In this gentle forum we can mourn the loss of his constant "likes" to our statuses and celebrate his Ballistic APPROACH to spelling, Capitalization, a,nd puncturation (sic).”
The misspelled words and poor grammar refer to an early campaign poster by the Best-King ticket in which “experience” was misspelled. The mission statement goes on to say that Best’s year in office will be a “train wreck.” The group is private, so the administrator of the group is not visible. However, the ASG member said that the group is “run by the campaign that lost.” Best was told by ASG Senate Pro-Tempore Bethany Peterman that the group was started by Peres.
Asked about the group, Peres said, “I haven’t made a group on Facebook. I have no idea who created the group. I did join it, and there were maybe 14 or 13 other members when I joined, but I’m removing myself from this whole mess because we’ve patched things up.”
According to the source, there have also been rumors regarding Best hiring people to come to campus and say slanderous things about homosexuals, as well as hacking the voting system to ensure his victory.
One such example found on the profile of Administrative Chairperson of SAB Heather Nichelle-Peres, vice presidential candidate and Director of Diversity Rae Peres’ partner, is a comment left by former ASG Sen. Ryan Lerud stating, “Somehow he cheated because he won by so many votes. When you are so blind you can’t see your hand in front of your face . . . .”
Jennifer Rogers, the head of the non-partisan Elections Committee, also left several comments on Nichelle-Peres’ profile, including, “We know who we want, even if we didn’t get her!!”
Pannell and Peres also commented on the Facebook profile, saying that their “time is worth more elsewhere,” and that their supporters are “still a reflection of Team P as well as ASG and ME and you aren’t doing it justice!”
Best said Tuesday he was made aware of the group during campaigning.
“I didn’t really like this, everyone thought it was funny and I wanted to come unglued, but kept my composure,” said Best. “I asked (former Director of Communications) Marcus Cosby what he thought of the campaign so far, and he told me that he couldn’t see what anyone was really about because of all the bitching. So he set me straight and from there on I decided to make sure that my message was getting out to the students.”
Asked about Rogers’ comments, Best said, “I knew throughout the campaign that Jennifer spent time with the other ticket. She was supposed to remain neutral, and she did a great job up until the end. I saw the profile and it hurt because I couldn’t believe what she said; I thought we’d made a connection. I’d like to think that this was just some end-of-the-election emotion and nothing more will come of this.”
Regarding the cheating allegations, Best said that if he cheated, people could have “easily seen” what was going on and put a stop to it.
While Pannell initially thought that cheating could have been a possibility, she said she no longer believes it’s an issue and will not contest the election.
“We made a lot of connections during this process,” said Pannell. “I think (Team P) prepared more. The person that does a better job campaigning and puts in more preparation and more work doesn’t always win. You can’t base a president off of two weeks of campaigning. You have to look at the entire body of work.”
Pannell said she will spend the next year preparing to run for president once again.
“I will make a mark next year, that’s for sure.”