Dear students of Northwestern,
Tonight at 12:01 a.m., a week-long campus-wide circus of absurd proportions will begin. No, the folks from Cirque Du Soleil aren’t in town for a visit. It’s ASG campaign week. You will be bombarded with empty slogans, vapid rhetoric, and the occasional sincere truth over the course of the next several days. It is an unrelenting torrent of information and promises, to be processed in making your ultimate decision at the voting box.
Until now, the ASG elections have been a notoriously one-sided affair. The student body sits passively like good little children while painted buffoons do their tricks and dances in ludicrous efforts to gain attention and votes. Though there is some truth buried amidst the bullshit, this week is notoriously crammed with farce. Until now, there has been little for the average student to do about this unbalanced relationship between candidates and voters.
UNTIL NOW. ASGossip is here to bridge the gap between the voting public and the candidates. Though our identities must remain a secret for our own protection, we are students at this university like you. We have watched idly while a yearly puppet show is dangled before our eyes, while at the same cursing our own impotence in the process. The obvious solution would be to run for office ourselves, but this is a luxury only a handful of students can afford. Instead, we decided to create a dynamic forum for both our own perspective on the elections and the thoughts and feelings of the entire student body.
To the students of Northwestern, consider ASGossip to be your close companion over the course of this week. Check the site early and often; updates will be posted several times each day. Our eyes and ears will be everywhere, and you will see and hear it all. And if you have any inside info, thoughts on the elections, interesting observations, or even blatant propaganda to offer, PLEASE WRITE US! This is your forum as much as ours, and the identities of all corrrespondents will be kept STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. If you wish, you may even create a code name, in the spirit of pseudo-subterfuge under which this site has been formed.
To the candidates running for ASG offices, be warned that there is a new variable entering into your plans and schemes. We will question and criticize when warranted, mock when it makes us laugh, and praise when deserved. We will be everywhere, observing and sharing your public persona with the campus through the power of the Internet. You may be taken to task as never before. But at the same time, you will receive feedback on what you’re doing in the campaign, and will have another opinion to consider in your decisions: that of the voters. Also, you can use this site to your own ends just as easily as the students. If you have gossip to share, thoughts to convey, or wish to challenge anything we’ve written, PLEASE WRITE US! Due to the nature of your position, you may or may not choose to remain anonymous, but if you choose, your identity can be kept STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. And yes, even you can make up a neat code name if you desire.
As voting for the ASG elections moves online and Internet registration looms around the corner, we are entering a new age of communication power. ASGossip is a direct manifestation of that new power. It is our sincere hope that in challenging the conventions of ASG elections through commentary, humor, and criticism, both the voters and the candidates will gain a new awareness of their crucial role in the process of Associated Student Government.
Sincerely,Misters Purple, Magenta, Yellow, and Black