ASUO Executives-elect Amelie Rousseau and Maneesh Arora have not been wasting any time — I have heard they are trying to get a full staff hired by the end of this school year. Those of you who read the Ol’ Dirty may have seen their display advert for these positions. Every executive has the option to add and change the staff positions as they see fit, often creating new jobs or redefining old ones. Rousseau does a little bit of both here.

She made a number of interesting choices, but I would like to focus on one in particular — Political Director. People have been asking me for a couple weeks now how I feel about Rousseau and Arora hiring current ASUO Programs Administrator Conrad Hulen to be their Chief of Staff. They claim that this is an odd hire because as of the last couple of years, the new executives hire their campaign manager, or someone close to the campaign to be the Chief of Staff. To those people, I say that that hiring Hulen doesn’t really matter. The Chief of Staff position, with the creation of Political Director, is politically unimportant. Hulen will quite literally manage the staff — nothing more, nothing less.

The Political Director position, on the other hand, is meant to fill the role that Chief of Staff used to fill — namely, setting the agenda for the administration and getting other programs and strategic allies on board. My prediction, along with ASUO politicos and skeptics, is that Amelie’s boyfriend and former Ol’ Dirty opinion editor/news editor/ASUO reporter Robert D’Andrea will receive this position. And let me tell you, the man knows how to play the system. He’s been watching it for years now and knows what’s gonna work to reach his goals.

And that’s the scary part. Seventy five percent of senators are brand new. Usually at the beginning of the year the executive is new too, and the two groups grow and mature together. This year, it’s going to be a little different. Rousseau and Arora have been coached by D’Andrea all throughout the process so far and, if everything happens as it has been appearing to, will continue to be coached throughout the year, creating an imbalance of power simply by pure experience. Sure, Robert has never worked directly for the ASUO. But with all that experience watching, does it really matter?

I really do think the ASUO can be effective. Laugh if you want, but with good intentions and reasonable dialogue, the ASUO really can enhance the cultural and physical development of this university in a way that represents students. With this kind of political bullshit, however, that goal is not so easily reached. We’ll have to see what issues the administration chooses to push before I can definitively say that. Let’s just say that when Robert does become the Political Director — the conductor of the Rousseau-Arora train — I will not be surprised.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 04:04 by Lyzi Diamond and is filed under ASUO, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.