Way to go, Emma. Even that was boring
There’s only one thing I can really take away from this whole thing with the unanimously approved con court justices and their unanimous dismissal of the grievance against ASUO President Emma Kallaway: Even when scandal seems to envelope her, Kallaway bores it all away.
Say what you will about Kallaway and Vice President Getachew Kassa, the campaign they ran and the job they have done since taking office. They have never been the most politically sexy students in the room.
In the primary debate they had to go against Nick Gower, who talked until he shook and threw a pencil, and Carina Miller, the source of all of those recent oblique references to people crying during Athan Papailiou’s Senate confirmation hearing. Though Gower and Miller are two of the more politically predictable individuals in the ASUO, whenever I’m around them I feel I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
Then there was Nick Schultz, who can talk for hours with a cadence and facial expressions that show at least he is convinced what he is saying is very, very interesting. There was Michelle Haley and Ted “Football tickets” Sebastian, who gave us A-Robb and Puddles, booze bottles, energy drinks and months-overused “shitty” quotes.
(And Ryan McCarrell was, well, Ryan McCarrell.)
Through it all, Kassa barely spoke above a whisper and Kallaway, in her sharp red shoes, inspired a concerted nod and an, “Oh. That makes sense. I guess we should vote for her.”
Now shes president and things are about the same. Haley filed the grievance; Kallaway responded and quietly went on working. All the talk of how she would be tainted in every news story didn’t quite pan out. The confirmation hearings for her well-spoken, seemingly qualified and previously uninvolved judicial nominees went off without a single tough question. Each was confirmed 18 votes to zero.
Then those nominees put their heads down and went to work, releasing an opinion at the beginning of the third work day after confirmation. No more dragging that story along, not that it had been interesting any time in the past two months.
Perhaps the ASUO is more of a microcosm of real politics than we ever recognize. As Barack Obama painted himself the polar opposite of George W. Bush not by being a partisan of the angry left, but a post-partisan healer, Kallaway ran not as a fighter for student unions but as someone who doesn’t relentlessly schmooze, pout and call people pipsqueaks.
The opposite of a supposedly fiscally conservative iconoclast is not a student power iconoclast. It’s a well-mannered, consensus-building workhorse.
Even when she could have given us months of reality TV-style drama, Emma Kallaway just did her work and bored the story to death.
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Comments
I like that Kallaway isn’t a drama or headlines monger. The ASUO and those involved with it are often painted as petty, catfight-starting brats, especially around election time. I’m glad Kallaway took the high road by not trashing Michelle Haley, which she could’ve done very easily. She seems to recognize how much work she, Kassa and the rest of her staff have ahead of them… I hope to hear more about what they have accomplished/plan to accomplish in the future – even if it’s not sexy.
Well done.