“Special Report”: New ticket enters Student Senate race in the nick of “Time”

In an era of unorthodox elections and politics, Student Senate elections is following suit with an unprecedented fourth ticket: Time. Although satirical, this ticket is now actively campaigning and asking for write-in votes from students, and plans to run again next year.With platform points that include being “4/20 friendly,” providing daily spicy chicken sammies, endorsing 2-ply toilet paper and advocating for clocks in every classroom, Time has grown in popularity to amass more followers on Twitter than Fight and Voice. “Time management is super important to college students. If we had these clocks, maybe we would have gotten our ballot in on time,” Treasurer candidate Luke Fikaris said. “We’re talking about maybe a satellite system. We’re doing digital clocks to appeal to the millennials for next year.”https://twitter.com/TimeForOhio/status/844995279216611328President Chrissy Grieshop views Senate as a one-year job.“A lot of tickets try to do too much. You really only get one year, no matter what, so it’s better to undersell ourselves than oversell,” she said. “Just say, this is what we can realistically do, and if we exceed it, we’re heroes!”On social media, Time’s goal is to appear “less stupid” than the other candidates, which it views as successful. The ticket also applauds what it views as poor social media strategy from the other accounts.“We’re trying to reach millennials through the best way they respond — dank memes,” Vice President candidate Anthony DiRienzo said. “‘Cuz at the end of the day, nobody cares about Student Senate. If we can make content out of it, then we’re golden.”https://twitter.com/TimeForOhio/status/844712902326145026The executives also addressed the graffiti wall scandal from earlier in the election season. According to Time, someone with a “personal vendetta” covered local artist Jerod Black’s mural, which Fight then covered with its own art. Time was first accused of covering the mural before Fight, but that was later debunked.“It was a huge scramble to find out that literally no one here did it,” Grieshop said.https://twitter.com/FightforOU/status/845321783574237184It also found the Green Light scandal involving Vice President candidate Nicole Schneider to be a good source of content for them. A post was unearthed last week from December 2016 of Schneider calling herself a homophobic slur in an Instagram comment.“Who was it — a Voice-affiliated guy pulled it up, and it was great timing on his part. He must have been holding onto that one since Christmas, and it was a good political strategy,” Fikaris said. “Dirty as hell, but beautiful.”Time has generated more buzz than past Student Senate elections, and is drawing more attention than some current tickets. Although unplanned, the comedians are riding the wave.https://twitter.com/TimeForOhio/status/844564523671531520“People who don’t follow Student Senate really like us,” DiRienzo said. “Honestly, if we’ve learned anything from the past presidential election, being a thorn in the side of everyone is good enough to get you elected.”In the end, if elected, Time plans on creating total opacity with Student Senate and creating drama. The ticket has recruited enough people to have multiple backup candidates for each exec position, and has offered the positions to the other parties if they run into a hard spot. But in the end, they’re here to serve the students.“Once elected, I think we might throw some dope parties. Definitely let them know we’re here, maybe have a mixer at the Crystal,” Grieshop said.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDdqk_pMIUQ