MSU presidential candidates: the politicians and the political

In this year’s coverage of the MSU’s presidential candidates, we mixed compliments with criticism for each of the seven contenders. We talked about personality and picked on platform.

But even with the added commentary, we stuck with a pretty balanced distribution of coverage. Each candidate got their fair shake at an interview with the Sil, had a few paragraphs written about them and got space in the Opinions section to make their pitch.

And at the Tuesday debate, it will be no different. The candidates will sit in a row, getting equal time to respond to the same questions.

It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

In this election more so than most, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out who the more qualified candidates are. There are candidates who’ve been planning this thing for months.

They launched sites, made pages, posted videos and put up posters on day one. They have teams and campaign headquarters. They’ve got detailed and specific platforms.

They’re making a conventional run at MSU presidency. And they’ll probably do well because of it.

They’ll do well because they’re running as politicians first. But there are candidates who, before they were ever politicians, were simply political.

They had beliefs – ideologies, even. And that might hurt them in the election, because when it comes to MSU presidential races, running on an ideology can be like fitting a square peg (or maybe a square piece of red felt) into a round hole.

And that’s why, this year, the Silhouette is not endorsing anyone.

That’s not to say that picking the right person for the job isn’t important. And our editorial board certainly has some opinions on the matter.

But on Thursday, results will come in. Platforms and personalities will be forgotten as the candidates are ordered one through seven on the first ballot count, and then eliminated one by one until the CEO of next year’s MSU is chosen.

The divide between these candidates won’t matter any more. But it should. If not at the ballot box, it should matter once a conventional candidate has been picked.

Hopefully, both the president-elect and the MSU’s membership can take the genuine beliefs of the runners-up seriously.