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Thursday, March 28, 2024 — Houston, TX

If you want a president, don’t vote for me

By Denis Leahy     2/26/14 9:45am

Although I vehemently protest the easily belittling label of “joke candidate,” I openly accept its connotations. I pride myself in my ability to make fun of most things, including myself. However, I expect the student body to be intelligent enough to actually understand what I’m doing and saying.

From the desk of your joke candidate:

Although I vehemently protest the easily belittling label of “joke candidate,” I openly accept its connotations. I pride myself in my ability to make fun of most things, including myself. However, I expect the student body to be intelligent enough to actually understand what I’m doing and saying.



Rice isn’t perfect. If there is anything that I’ve learned through my comprehensive participation in many of its levels, it is that. When this realization first struck, it came as quite a shock to me, but it is a realization that is not only obvious and unavoidable, but inherent in any system of such size and complexity.

I don’t give a [] if you don’t care about your university. Although I’d love to hear your reason for putting so many resources into something that you care so little about, I don’t really care. However, we have to acknowledge that this university needs to function. An SA president needs to be elected, and I’m not going to be your SA president.

For all of the complaints that I list for both the administration and the SA, I have great respect for both. I don’t think that either is perfect, but I hope that each will take into consideration my own criticisms and strive to make a better Rice, for present and future undergraduates. If you haven’t pieced this together yet, I’ll be more direct: Everything that I have done and said has been to improve Rice. It also comes through the mouth and hands of a tired, washed-up and frustrated senior, but the ultimate goal remains the same.

As such, I wanted to clarify my current involvement in the SA General Elections. I am listed on the ballot, but I will never take office, even if I gain the majority of votes. I’ll have a hell of a party, but I will not assume any ounce of responsibility. I am not going to tell you to not vote for me. But don’t vote for me because you like my jokes; vote for me to send a message. Unlike a vote for Min Ji, Trent or Ravi, which has a limited but inevitable effect on campus, sending a message is the best a vote for me can accomplish.

View each vote for me as a resounding “F- you” to everything that is what you hate about Rice. Although it does absolutely nothing productive, it sends the message that everything is not OK, that you do not believe the administration has your best interests in mind and that you’d rather vote for a graduating senior than perpetuate the present state of affairs. I’ll leave it to your own interpretation whether this is actually productive or not. Either way, your vote represents your voice, and to have no voice is close to inexcusable.

Alas, an SA President will be elected. I implore you to keep this in mind while voting. Remember that you will be represented by one person, who will be determined by the outcome of this election. However much you like my message, it is your responsibility to establish the most potentially effective environment through which the SA may bring some of this change. With that said, I fully endorse write-in candidate Ravi Sheth as your 2014-2015 SA President.

I hope you don’t read this as an instruction manual. You’re all adults, so do whatever you want to do. Whether you vote for me or a candidate who actually has the capacity to change anything at this university, it is still your decision. But please, vote. I list student apathy as a serious problem with the student body, and it’s terribly disconcerting to see how few actually voted in the election. Please, I beg you, take up some constructive role in the shaping of your immediate environment, if not for you, then for those of us who care so much that you have the liberty to enjoy those things that are produced.

In summation, I’m the man who has brought the issues to the forefront. Ravi is the man who is most capable of bringing them into action. If I am the candidate that this university needed, Ravi is the one that it deserves. He has the experience, the drive and, most importantly, the understanding that is necessary to bring long-needed changes to the SA. But above all, please go out and vote.

Denis Leahy is a Martel College senior.



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