Beyond the Talking Points

Kurt, I’m wondering if you would care to opine on the rejection of Jake Burow’s application for the SSFC via the Nominations Board on Wednesday, as well as the relevance of this for the leadership elections which happened earlier today (or yesterday, I guess). I’m just having trouble figuring out how Jake could find himself without a seat on the committee in consideration of the following facts:

- Jake had 1 1/2 years of experience on the SSFC, tied with Romenesko as the longest serving sitting member on the committee. Manes has only been on for a year.

- Jake barely missed out on winning a seat through elections, finishing well above Cale and Manes. Historically, haven’t the election results played an important role in determining appointments?

- Jake’s overall knowledge of the SSFC was certainly better than any of the other appointed candidates, none of which had any experience on the committee. (And please don’t tell me experience is irrelevant after what your side argued during the Chair debate tonight.)

- Jake was appointed through Noms last year with only a semester’s worth of experience and presumably less knowledge of the SSFC’s work.

To most objective outsiders (of which I am, admittedly, not one) the Noms Board decision regarding Jake was – to employ a term used by one former SSFC Chair during Open Forum – “preposterous.” Even if Jake had the worst possible interview, I cannot possibly see how Noms justified its decision.

So, then one must consider other factors. Like the composition of Noms. Who is on this committee? You and I, of course, both know that the members present during Jake’s decision were mostly people who don’t like MPOWER, don’t like progressivism, don’t like Jake’s approach to committee issues. We also know that these same members mostly count themselves as friends and political allies of the winning candidate for Chair. The readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware of these same facts.

What’s more, Jake was planning to run for Chair! Whatever else you may think of him, Jake comes across as an agreeable and sympathetic guy. People like him. On the other hand, by Manes’ own admission, his biggest personal weakness is his (perceived) difficult personality. Considering this, along with the principal argument made for Manes over Lizotte (experience), who do you think would have won in a contest between Manes and Burow?

There are other things to consider, too – like one unallied SSFC rep telling me that he personally witnessed Manes telling voting Noms members to bring up this and that about Burow during the debate to ensure his rejection. And other such things. The point is, anyone with the right information and half a brain knows what really happened.

So, yes, victories and even “sweeps” are possible when people are substantially motivated by self-promotion and willing to utilize the tactics such as the ones described above. This is especially true when the other side uses no such tactics and is purely motivated by a laudable political agenda.

I was not involved with MPOWER and, even in disagreement, I nonetheless have a great deal of respect for your knowledge of and commitment to ASM issues – the same goes for Manes and the rest. But when shit ain’t fair, it needs to be identified and called out as such.