Election SWAT

By Chris Beauchamp

Every candidate in the Students’ Union election aims to create an eye-catching poster to snag the attention of the average student voter. And each year, as the nominations close, most candidates are already on the phone to their friends stationed around the “prime” poster locations, giving them the go-ahead to drop their furled banners like so many rolls of toilet paper. And like a good roll of double-ply, these posters would be more useful if they were put within arm’s reach of an outhouse.

Regardless of how long candidates took placing their poorly exposed self portraits and worthless jingoist slogans into Microsoft Word, most of their tree-killing, design-abortions still look like crap.

Gauntlet all-around assholes Chris Beauchamp and Jon Roe are here to take the candidates’ hours of work (fuelled by a sincere desire to have an elected position on their resume), and turn it all into a five-minute-long, tasteless, unfunny and downright mean piece for the Gauntlet’s often tasteless, always unfunny, currently downright mean Academic Probation section.

Chris: Let’s start with this Justin Barrett clown. I mean he couldn’t be any more hardcore if he knocked out his front teeth and shaved off his emo haircut. Well, actually, that’d be way more hardcore.

Jon: Hey, getting a tattoo on your ass if you’re elected is pretty hardcore. But instead of the SU logo, he should just cut to the chase and get “I’m a tool of the man” branded… on his forehead.

Chris: Yeah, he can’t be that good of a candidate, after all there was only one short quote from him in the Gauntlet story about the events forum. I think it was “student apathy is killing me.”

Jon: Just like his poster is killing me.

Let’s check out this Fraser Stuart number. Wait a second, where the hell was that photo taken? Is that the bombed-out hole Stuart lives in or is he peering in someone’s basement window?

Chris: Yeah, I hear he’s from some war-torn country in the Caucasus somewhere. I think it’s called Argyllistan. All the young people wear old people’s clothes, and never change out of the same goddamn sweater.

Jon: I have another question, how can he be a good VP operations and finance if he lives in a hovel with no operations or finances?

Chris: I have an answer: he can’t. Next.

Jon: How about Michael Prang? With chest hair like that, it looks like he was cruising around the annual shave your head for cancer event with a glue stick.

Chris: But now he’ll be able to cruise for cougars in other places too, like the Alcove. He looks like Leisure Suit Larry.

Jon: If Prang is looking for cougars, then Deanna Cameron Dubuque must be looking for the male equivalent. Is she trying to invite voters or speed daters?

Chris: Both, I think. It doesn’t really matter though. She’s only running for senate. All you have to do is sit there, look pretty and collect a free parking spot. Look at Brent Kettles, he’s mastered it.

Jon: Minus the looking pretty part. At least he has ‘experience.’ He won’t dent the cars on either side of him, he’s gone in and out of that spot for two fucking years.

Chris: You forgot ‘integrity’ and ‘vision.’ He’s got the vision to back into his spot and the integrity to let his friends use it when he doesn’t need it.

Jon: Next.

Chris: Let’s look at this Wilma Shim. Her poster says she’s FOCUSED, but with a skirt like that I wonder what she’s hoping people focus on?

Jon: It was nice of her to rip off the fourth grade with the acrostic poem. At least she looks sassy and professional in that business suit. Though that also looks like it was ripped off a fourth grader.

Chris: At least she had the know-how to make an exciting poster. Unlike Kyle Olsen.

Jon: He’s less exciting than Calista Flockhart at a buffet, ‘No thanks, I already ate.’ He could’ve at least smiled for his goddamn campaign poster, it looks like someone just told him he doesn’t get to file his taxes this year.

Chris: The highlight of his day is probably choosing whether or not he’s going to have 1 per cent or skim milk with his All-Bran.

Jon: Well Julie Bogle wins the “most clever” award by making hers into a mock-Google site. Though I don’t know if she’d like all the possible connotations. Is she going to sell our information to the U.S. government or block out certain aspects of her job for the Chinese?

Chris: I dunno, but that picture looks like it came up on a Google image search for “Ally McBeal + old lady necklaces.”

Jon: I wonder what happens when I click the “I’m feeling lucky” button? Next.

See ELECTION SWAT, page 34

Chris: I think any idiot can see the brand recognition Teale Phelps Bondaroff is going for. It’s clearly “I’m the kind of dork that owns my own samurai sword.”

Jon: I thought it was for that Quentin Tarrantino movie, you know, Four Rooms? Except in all four of the rooms, there’s a dork with a samurai sword.

Chris: Yeah, and I recognize that suit. He wore it 20 hours a day for the entire week of the campaign.

Jon: You’d think Jack Layton would be kind enough to buy him a new suit, or at least a sweet crumb-catcher. Next.

Chris: This Julie Labonte woman seems to be avoiding some of these pitfalls. She’s not showing any leg and she doesn’t live in a hovel.

Jon: No, it looks like she wants to be “West Wing” Barbieâ„¢. She must live in the Barbie Mansion with that plastic picture of hers.

Chris: That’s not plastic Jon, that’s Photoshop.

Jon: Next.

Chris: It looks like the SU election budget ran out before they got to Kat Lord. A vote for her is a vote for sniffing markers, eating crayons and colouring inside the lines, mostly.

Jon: Maybe she’ll be lobbying politicians with homemade cards put together with sparkly glue. Next.

Chris: So what do you think about Luke Valentine?

Jon: How can I vote for an A.C. who was booted as a C.A.? Hey Luke, how’s the GPA?

Chris: Ouch Jon. Low blow.

Jon: They’re all low blows, Chris. That’s the point! Hey, look it’s David Bowie! Or should I say Phil Hunter, Captain Androgeny.

Chris: Androgeny is sexy nowadays, I’m told. You know what’s not sexy though, and never has been?

Jon: Gun fingers?

Chris: That too, but no, I was going to say Mike Selnes.

Jon: That’s not fair, someone obviously surprised him with that camera. ‘Holy shit? Am I supposed to be running in an election now?’

Chris: More like, ‘Holy shit! Why am I wearing a blazer with my T-shirt? I look like an extra in Animal House!’

Jon: Well, at least he had the good sense to show up to the external forum. Unlike Jamie Lall and Tanmeet Singh, who apparently were busy getting their photos taken in front of a gradient.

Chris: Yeah, they should change their slogan to “Working together to lose an election.”

Jon: It might as well be everyone’s slogan. Pass me a poster, I’m going to the outhouse.