It’s all about the implication.

Have you ever wondered how you can take control of your local сове́т—err, student council, rather? Do you ever pay attention to your college’s elected council members and think “This is ridiculous, I could do that under budget and ahead of schedule!”? Well, over years of acquiring and consolidating information about Columbia’s political arena, we’ve acquired some insight into the workings of the Columbia political elite. Here are some ways they do it, summarized and placed into easy to follow steps. We, for one, hope there’s some more political excitement this year. 

Path 1: The Good Route

Step 1: Develop a campaign which hints at soft authoritarian change premised upon the creation of a stronger link between your college and the Administration. If possible, have organizations where you’ve created social, academic, and/or professional inroads act as a primitive GOTV infrastructure.
Step 2: Assemble a dream team of party candidates, brand yourself as something relatable to Columbia—but with a ring to it. At worst, play off our “color” Pantone 292. Make sure you have an apt and diverse team with interesting and original ideas—but not out of political expedience, simply because actually think it proper.
Step 3: Act professionally and transparently in your interactions with current and (possibly) future members of your council, with the companion councils, and with Administrators of any type. Win the vote with a smile, supplemented by your team’s plan to increase voter turnout in your favour.
Step 4: Herald your victory with a presentation of interesting and important policy proposals, developed both in and out of “student council time”. This internal positioning will accrue you great benefits, and is made possible due to the members of your party living close by and having a strong preexisting friendship.
Step 5: Work on small things to establish credibility, proceeding onwards to more complex and exciting topics and policy proposals as you develop relations within the council and in the Administration. Position your party members on important subcommittees—but do what you think will benefit your college most.
Step 6: With your credibility, reliability, and accomplishments in hand, pave your way to the council’s executive board, where you can then rule the roost. Repel challengers on the way with a strong record of accomplishments, confidence, and personal charm.
Step 7: Depart from your undergraduate political career having changed, at least, the internal structure of your council. Leave behind fond memories, with your ascendancy seen as a time when the council tried to do what’s best for you and your fellow students, working to nurture a warm relationship with the Administration.

Path 2: The (Trump-)Makansi Route

Step 1: Develop a primary strategy for overtaking the encrusted political bourgeois. Take advantage of unforeseen public outcry—at a scandal, in response to campus politics, at some external situation which incites the student body—and patently obvious general disadvantages to life under your opponents’ status quo.
Step 2: Utilizing your established positions in various organizations, work at creating a GOTV infrastructure. Perhaps take advantage of your position in a fraternity or sorority to artificially increase your social media presence. Or perhaps have a group of creative compatriots develop unique ways of displaying your party to your school. Regardless, excite as many people as you can, making as many vague campaign promises as possible.
Step 3: Assemble a party, with at least one other person who fully understands, and shares, your plans. Preexisting friendship and loyalty will ensure your faction is cohesive at level way above your political opponents. Give your party an intriguing, but eye-catching, name and/or slogan(s)—something that juxtaposes against the first performances in your (actually) well-oiled, confident, and highly able campaign.
Step 4: Utilize fresh ideas to propose easily accomplished, immediately enactable internal goals for your council. Promise ultra-transparency—easily accomplished with an iPhone to record, a website on which to place your documents and updates, social media proficiency for your party and personal brand, GoogleDocs knowledge, and a good recording secretary for your minutes. At the same time, call out the now-magnified tangible issues which your seemingly effortless campaign proposals will immediately fix. If your political opponents inside the Lerner beltway act upon your campaign proposals, they are essentially conceding defeat to your new ideas while very obviously stealing them.
Step 5: When your constituents view you in public or when “professional” relations see you in council related meetings, act with a personal charm and demeanour in the manner as you would with friends. Never act as you are politically “supposed to act” with (potentially) voting constituents. Introduce a personal influence into your campaign. Be relatable, yet unique. Don’t fit into a box and you’ll throw off your opponents.
Step 6: Excuse any negative aspects of your party or campaign by underscoring your previously uninvolved relationship with student government. Portray your entry into the political arena as motivated by an Augustinian urge to better your surrounds. The less connected you seem to the encrusted elite, the worse their structural flaws—which nobody has harped upon in a truly public setting until now—will appear to be. Say you’re having fun with it, nobody can fault a person who is working for them happily.
Step 7: Win. Enact what you can, and spread your party to the important subcommittees and factions within the council. Assemble all information collectively to better plan for your future in the council. If you took the executive board in your victory, project yourself as conciliatory despite entering unwanted into an already cemented political environment. Use your inexperience as a social tool to present yourself in as non-aggressive a light as possible. Win hearts and minds, but never waver.
Step 8: Metamorphose into the executive board of your council. Speak softly and carry a big stick, yet never let anybody doubt you actually care. Send Late Night™ council emails to the entire school. Why? Because you can. Organize an entirely wholesome pong tournament. Why? Because why the hell not. Rule as a Prince, because that’s why you did this, right?

Path 3: The Implicative Route

Step 1: Demonstrate value.
Step 2: Engage physically.
Step 3: Nurture dependence.
Step 4: Neglect emotionally.
Step 5: Inspire hope.
Step 6: Separate entirely.
(Step 7: Repeat at your will.)

Take a tip guys and gals via I-STANdGround / CC-BY-SA 2.0