After a year as undergraduate student body president and as a graduating senior, I had hoped to stay out of this year’s student government campaigns and let the electoral process take its course. Unfortunately, though, members of the student body have come under attack by a couple of selfish, arrogant, egotistical individuals. In the four years I’ve been at this school, I have never seen such a pitiful display of students insulting other non-candidate students in order to win an election.

However, Rob Taylor, Pat Kelly, Students Organized Against the Athletic Fee Increase, and the Shakedown Party have resorted to this type of negative warfare for their own personal gains. Taylor is running for student body president and Kelly vice president. Both have spent their weekends parading through the bars passing out flyers that degrade other students. (As if people in bars on a Friday and Saturday night want to hear about Undergraduate Student Government in the first place!)

A February flyer by Kelly and Taylor’s group called student-athletes free riders. Another flyer called them members of a bunch of losing teams. Way to create school spirit, guys. Way to be student leaders by making student-athletes feel two feet tall.

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That’s not the worst of it. Taylor is president of SOAAFI. A spokeswomen for the group had to write a letter to the DE last month apologizing because someone passing out flyers for SOAAFI spit on a swimmer. Is this the type of leadership and behavior Taylor wants to see in the student body?

Maybe I should adopt this technique as student body president myself in order to further students’ interests. If the Chancellor disagrees with me, I’ll just spit on him. Maybe we should spit on fellow student workers if we think they are doing a bad job. How about students spitting on professors if they give you a B instead of an A on a paper. Why not? It’s how Rob Taylor and his organization does things.

What is even more amazing is that Pat Kelly has been the SIUC Student Trustee since last summer. Instead of talking about his own accomplishments and qualities during this campaign, he insults those of others, all so he can get elected. Any student in a leadership role on this campus should view Kelly as a potential backstabber. Pat, if you think you’ll make such a great student body vice president, then be man enough to talk about how strong your ideas and accomplishments are. If you have any guts what-so-ever, you’ll spend the rest of your campaign talking about yourself, not insulting other students.

I ask Taylor and Kelly to refrain from any further mudslinging and cute contentless flyers which concentrate on insults against fellow students instead of issues. Unfortunately, I question whether they have the class and common decency to do so. Taylor and Kelly, for the good of the student body, please prove me wrong.