Husts!

Right, so on to the hustings. First of all, remember that these aren't too relevant, as most people there have already made their minds up. Still, we saw some interesting stuff come out of this (not enough to merit nearly three hours of being cold outside the Stables,
sadly).


COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER

From the offset, it seemed that this was going to be a calm enough part of the hustings. David gave a fairly decent speech, promised a few things without saying what they were, managed to work in his relevant experience. Likewise Aoife talked about her policies and her experience (although, sadly it was mainly off a sheet).Then the floor was thrown open to questions. It quickly became apparent that David didn't see Pulse in the SU's future. Or the paper really. We were informed about how bad An Focal is, how flawed the entire position is, and indeed how little he thought of An Focal in the last year, and we should move to the website instead. Ms. Breen must be delighted to know this.Things got even more bizarre when the current Sabbats starting intervening, with Pa O'Brien questioning if David understood exactly what it was he was running for.The final straw came when David was asked how he would decide on what gets printed. He said that he wanted to expand the talent pool, and use the best writers, to make a professional quality paper. He'd do this by printing only the highest quality articles. Interesting, as his manifesto states;

Anyone who submits a story will have that story published, I feel we needto move
away from being dependant on the the current clique of writers, who do agreat
job, but there's no way such a small group can really represent thecomplete view
of life in UL

Bit of contradiction there, surely?And as for Aoife, well, there wasn't much from her. She said the same things really as her manifesto, a bit of expansion. It's clear this girl needs to get a bit more fire however. Biggest mistake was claiming that An Focal was "The Union's paper" and that she "couldn't use it to criticise other Sabbats, as this would cause tension". To be honest, I assumed that An Focal was meant to serve the students, rather than the Sabbats. Or both, as David did point out.

WHO CAME OUT BEST?

Realistically, this wasn't a great event for either candidate. It was close enough, with David edging it before the questions. As the question portion of this pageant rolled on, David's tiara looked very shaky. By a small bit, I'd put this one for Aoife. In saying that, let me make clear that Aoife didn't win this, rather David managed to lose it.


CAMPAIGNS AND SERVICES

The husts for CSO went much more smoothly.

Darragh Bourke opened with a relatively decent speech, usual stuff of better services, better campaigns, and the all-purpose "down with fees" malarkey at the end. Did himself good in general, but didn't really make anything to drag him back into the race.

Fergal had a speech of two halves, really. When he was on form, he was blazing, with some good ideas, and a pretty decent hold on the audience. When he wasn't, however, he had to be fed substantially by his campaign manager Paddy Rockett, both points and his facts. A lot more could have been done here.

Michelle did herself a lot of justice, and was the clearest speaker, very good manner, with a few decent points. The main problem with her speech was that it hinged on "What do you want me to do?". While this isn't a bad thing, it did make it seem as if she had few ideas of her own.

Which was something that lacked greatly from the CSO husts. While nobody made any huge errors (one would have thought Fergal would have acquitted himself slightly better), nobody did anything great either. All three (especially Michelle) had a tendency to avoid the question they were asked, which felt a bit of a cop-out.

WHO CAME OUT BEST?

This is a difficult one to call. For the most part, they said the same things, with no wildly different views appearing. Fergal played off the crowd well, but due to his huge flaws, I think that Michelle edged the hust. I don't see this having a huge effect on the overall campaign, however, with Fergal starting to really push out the boat with his campaign (more on that later).



EDUCATION

For most supporters present, this was the big one (sorry, presidential hopefuls). As the candidates took the stage, it became apparent that they had all brought large teams for support, particularly Emma (how did she train that army so well?).

Aoife was the first to speak, and made a pretty good speech, outlining her policies and experience. She did well to make her voice heard, and dealt with most of the stuff you'd expect from an Education hopeful.

Emma definitely benefitted from her Debating past and found herself at ease on the stage ("I'm just here to have a chat about the Education Office". Bless.). She did very well at representing herself as "the fresh voice (tm)", and made a good speech about why she was running, and what she wanted to do.

David seemed very nervous for the most part, and did his best to stake his claim in the "I've seen the mistakes of the past" territory. Made a reasonable speech, needed more urgency in his voice though.

Huw was reasonable enough, however, he veered into "I should get it because I want it" country. We heard a lot about his class, and the fact that he was an Engineering student, but it didn't really tie in. Showed some good promise though (he told of how he secured a room for 24/7 study for his department as Class Rep).

The questions were a bit of a vague mess (damn this sudden interest in education!), and at times it seemed as if all gave the same answer. When asked about how to change class reps, both David and Aoife seemed to rely on their tenure as reason enough, while Emma spoke of her plan to emulate Galway's faculty seperations (unusual, an actual feasible solution!). Huw also decided to opt for the "I'm a class rep, I can fix the problem" answer.

The most interesting question was on the plebiscite, and how would the candidates vote. While all gave the obvious "No fees" as their preferred option, it was interesting to note that each went for a different second option (Aoife: Higher Tax, Emma: Student Loans, David: Graduate Tax, Huw: "There is no other option"). It's a shame that this seems to be the only real difference between all of the candidates.

WHO CAME OUT BEST?

While all four made decent points (often the same ones), it seemed as though Emma had a better grip on the entire thing. Not only did she speak well, but she brought in a lot of new, different ideas. So it would seem that Emma walked away with it.

President

At this point, we were two hours in, and it seemed to effect all of the Presidential candidates. None of the three seemed to show the strength of leadership the SU needs.

First up was Mark, who, despite his "unique" campaign so far came across as quite charming, and managed to get quite a good few points in. He painted himself clearly as the non-clique based candidate, and did himself a lot of good here. If only he'd had the campaign to match.

Ruán also did himself reasonably well, made good points, despite a good deal of hesitation in his speech. Needs to find some assertion if he is to be ULSU's next president.

Eamonn was the final candidate, and played on his current position and experience. Also took the rather strange route of claiming there's be be rape and murder if he wasn't elected. Well, not quite, but there was a large degree of scare-mongering to his speech. Focused far too much on negativity, it would appear.

The question session was quite interesting, with the usual issues coming up. All addressed the idea of safety quite well, but a question of "how would you fund better security?" was danced around by all three candidates. Eamonn took some heavy hits, particularly when one person questioned why he felt it only necessary now to offer this pay cut during an election (a harsh question, but a valid one).

Eamonn did do himself proud however, when a clearly loaded question was asked about what had the candidates given up for the week (the inference being clear that Eamonn had abandonded the students). While the two other lads gave the perfunctory "Skipping class/pushing back essays" answer, Eamonn declared that he had taken two days holiday for today and tomorrow, and was still answering emails, phonecalls, and any students that approached him, and defended himself admirably. It's a shame that he had to though, as it was clear the question was an attempt to derail him.

WHO CAME OUT THE BEST?

As with all of them, it was a pretty even battle. However, it seemed like a two horse race with Ruán and Eamonn out ahead. While Eamonn deserves praise for defending himself so well, it did appear that Ruán managed to just about take this one. Eamonn still is in with a fighting chance though.