Power Rankings: 2014 Elections Campaign Strategy
Campaigning: does it really matter? It turns out that BBQs on the Village Green and paid Facebook advertising don’t always get you the win. We’ve already talked about highlights from this year’s campaigning period, but here’s a little #throwback to 2014.
1. Melissa Hughes – 478 votes
We didn’t know who Miss Hughes was before the WSU election and we still don’t really now. But the students obviously did, as she came in as the highest-polling candidate with 478 votes. Miss Hughes put in the hard-yards, with one source claiming that she alone baked over 1000 cupcakes. At an almost 0.5 success rate, we consider this to be a win when dealing with the student body. She was involved in the campaign to fix the L-Block doors. As this made our walk to class easier, we’ve doubled Miss Hughes’ power points.
2. Shannon Stewart - 723 votes (President)
Miss Stewart’s campaign was made up of many different complex layers. It proved to be successful as she beat her sole competition, Tau Marsden, by ninety votes. Her best tactic was probably scaring away all of the competition before voting even started, with four Presidential candidates “mysteriously” dropping out. On top of that, there was a Facebook page and a lot of cupcakes were given out. Students may remember that Miss Stewart fixed the L-Block doors herself (allegedly) so she got points for that. Let’s be honest, this was what clinched the win.
3. Sophie Millar – 399 votes
On a similar note to Miss Hughes, we’d also never heard of Miss Millar before. Her campaign was similar – walked through the newly-opened L-Block doors, gave out cupcakes next to the management school etc. Nothing new and exciting here, but it did the trick. She also remembered her last name on the L-Block Door video (SADLY THIS HAS BEEN DELETED GUYS), coming across as the more competent director candidate of the two.
4. Indula Jayasundara – 289 votes
Mr Jayasundara put together an outstanding campaign video with many long-shots of airplanes and close-ups of Skype calls. While the video was a little vague on what he actually wanted to do as a director, it was aesthetically pleasing and had a lot of student involvement. Mr Jayasundara was quite active on social media and turned up to the candidates meetings. Mr Jayasundara has a strong clubs background, it’s likely that this was one of the main reasons for his success.
5. Pape Barrett – 277 votes
We didn’t see a lot of campaigning from Mr Barrett himself, but lots of our friends seemed to endorse him on their Facebook pages. Making the most of a less than impressive SGM, Mr Barrett appeared to largely get his votes from the disgruntled Maori community, which seems fair enough but we weren’t privy to any secret campaigning emails to be able to rate him properly. We awarded points for a very environmentally-friendly campaign from Mr Barrett, as we did not see a single poster or flyer.
6. Kate Lunn – 285 votes
Miss Lunn, as an incumbent, was slightly more relaxed than her competitors. She ended up doing a “John Key”, and by this we mean that she went to a tropical island for the campaigning period. While her absence at the candidates meetings probably should’ve indicated that she didn’t care that much about being a director, she still got the votes easily enough. Points were awarded for efficiency.
7. Zanian Steele – 303 votes
While Mr Steele managed to get 303 votes for director, he fell short of his ultimate goal of being Vice-President, losing to his fellow incumbent by 72 votes. He moved away from his previous campaign tactics (of hypothetically calling viewers cunts), as he wanted a “Fresh Start”. The Fresh Start campaign was everywhere. You couldn’t find a seat on campus without a Fresh Start flyer in front of you. While the campaign didn’t work for the other (three?) girls he ran with, it was enough to secure Mr Steele the seat. We deducted points for being not-so-environmentally friendly, but allowed points for name recognition and overall effort.
8. Tau Marsden – 400 votes
While Mr Marsden was not successful in becoming President, he did manage to convince a whole heap of students that he’d be a good director. A newcomer to the WSU, Mr Marsden actually had a lot of experience he could bring to the table and showcased this reasonably well. While others may resort to quoting (excellent) films in their campaigns, Mr Marsden relied on substance and character to get him across the line. He was also nice to talk to around campus. We took away points as he actually didn’t win, but we gave him a few cheeky bonus ones for being a genuinely nice guy to talk to on campus.
9. Roy Mazorode – 660 votes (Vice-President)
“Free beer” parties may get the students going, but cost the organisation a lot of money in legal fees establishing whether Mr Mazorode broke the (boring) election rules. It turned out he didn’t. Props to him for trying to engage students, but points were deducted because his dodgy dealings meant that O-Week was smaller this year as the WSU didn’t budget for this extra cost (lol just kidding). Nexus also lost points for publishing Mr Mazorodes’ address for the world to see in issue 19 in the hit piece “First, Let’s Kill All of The Lawyers”.
10. Teina Walters – 301 votes
Mr Walters was slightly advantaged after excessive Nexus coverage of his failed bid for Hamilton Mayor in the 2013 Local Government Elections. Mr Walters played up his humble beginnings and rugby credentials, winning the votes from BMS students across the campus. We couldn’t quite trust his slogan “Don’t vote for me to help me, vote for me to help your peers” but enough students did. Partly because his other claims didn’t quite add up (Principal of Matamata College in Year 13, Mayor of Matamata at 18 y/o) and partly because no one ever runs for the WSU to help others.
11. Taha Tangitu-Huata – 970 votes
Only candidate for the role so he got it. Points for getting at least one person to vote for him, but probably not a lot of campaigning substance our newbies can learn from.