Suspicious of candidate's motives

While it will be up to the legal branch of our student governments, the Student-wide Judiciary, and not journalists to decide if Elevation candidate Mazin Kased acted inappropriately, if they will even hear the case, this is not the main problem here ("Outside candidates face obstacles as election nears," March 25).

First there is the fact that no one has asked how the recording of the conversation with Mazin came about. Unless SUNY SA candidate Francisco Baiocchi had ulterior motives, why would he have recorded the conversation? He could be paranoid or schizophrenic, but how likely is that?

If one assumes that for some odd reason Baiocchi accidentally or coincidentally recorded the conversation, it is important to point out that party-switching is very common on higher levels of American politics. New Yorkers may remember that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani used to be a Democrat before becoming a Republican. Not surprisingly, he became a lot more successful afterwards. In another case, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party in order to swing the balance of power in the U.S. Senate in the Democrats' favor.

It is also worth noting that every year, the only candidates that fulfill all the requirements for a successful career in the upper echelons of SA are from the same party. It is therefore not an act of bribery but an act of kindness and compassion to offer another candidate the chance to join the winning ticket.

One prime example of this is former Sub-Board I Vice President Reid Antonacchio, who initially ran as an independent candidate in opposition to the Elevation Party in the 2004 SA elections. Antonacchio correctly assessed the state of his candidacy mid-election and relinquished his chances of winning in favor of supporting the Elevation Party. Only in this way was he able to demonstrate his capability as a student leader and subsequently made it into one of the highest offices a student can hold at UB.

So again I repeat what I have written before: Find out the truth before you judge, or even worse falsely accuse anyone of wrongdoing. The Elevation Party is, as it has been, the only hope for a positive future for SA.