Tuesday’s ASG presidential election will feature five candidates in the largest field since 2005. It also stands out in another way: The candidates in the race have the least collective ASG experience in at least the last nine years.
Mark Crain and Neal Sales-Griffin each spent a year or less in ASG positions, and Luke Adams, Scott Burton and Blake Yocom have no formal ASG experience.
Current ASG President Jonathan Webber, on the other hand, spent three years in the Student Senate before his election last April.
It’s unusual for no candidate to have spent significant time in a prominent role in the organization, said ASG Senator Ravi Umarji, a Sales-Griffin supporter.
“None of the ASG candidates can claim significant ASG experience,” the McCormick sophomore said. “Mark Crain was on the Student Activities Finance Board for a year and Neal Sales-Griffin was a senator for six months, and those are the most entrenched ASG personnel running.”
Umarji speculated last year’s close race between Weinberg seniors Webber and Julian Hill, who had served as coordinator of For Members Only, led students without extensive ASG experience to run this year.
But Hill disputed Umarji’s explanation in an interview. A more likely interpretation of this year’s field, Hill said, was the absence of a genuine ASG insider, leaving an opening for less-experienced candidates.
“Maybe the fact that no insider is running opened it up a little more,” Hill said. “There’s an opportunity for people to come in and not be ostracized for not being very knowledgeable.”
Webber endorsed Burton, a Mock Trial team captain and former U.S. Marine, in a letter published in Friday’s Daily.
“Scott doesn’t have any experience in ASG, but for him, I think that is an asset, and in him I believe NU has a great opportunity,” the Weinberg senior wrote. “Scott’s life experience will lead him to be an effective liaison between students and NU administrators, and to focus on the student body instead of the student government.”
Hill, who has endorsed Mark Crain, his successor as FMO coordinator, found the assessment a break with Webber’s statements about experience in last year’s campaign.
“I definitely think there’s a clear inconsistency there, at least from my perspective, given what his message was last year when he talked about it being the key component to being president,” Hill said. “There definitely are people that when I was at the debate seemed to be much more qualified for the position.”
For his part, Webber said he didn’t see any contradictions in his letter.
“My letter stands for itself,” Webber said. “There’s no one from (executive board) running, and for me it’s about what type of experience you have, and Scott has a lot of good experience.”
Multiple ASG senators said they would want to serve under a president without ASG experience.
The president should have some background in ASG before joining the organization, said Jeff Cao, the ASG senator for College Democrats.
“It’s a little naive to think that you could suddenly come here without knowing how the system works and expect to effect change,” the Weinberg sophomore said.
Hill pointed out, however, that most so-called “insiders” during his four years at Northwestern haven’t run on platforms supporting the way ASG works.
“It’s always this message of ‘(ASG’s) not doing what it needs to do, and here I come to change things, and blah blah blah,'” Hill said.
