My first reaction to the Chronicle’s editorial page this past week was bewilderment, how could someone be so wrong? The anonymous attack on the Student Government Association and mainly Peter DiSilvio was quite atrocious. Apparently, the reason nobody ran against the incumbent President was because the current government made it impossible for other people to win. Silly me, I thought it was because DiSilvio has been doing an amazing job this year, fulfilling every campaign promise he made in his platform except one: To get more club advertising on the Hofstra website.

The fact that DiSilvio would maybe have four votes on his side in the Elections Committee means nothing. The Elections Committee does not choose who will win, but merely decides the rules in which candidates must abide by when in the process of running. Therefore, to prove this was a fact even worth mentioning one would have to prove that the rules passed by the committee this year were biased towards helping DiSilvio in the upcoming election.

The rules in the aforementioned editorial said to be giving DiSilvio an edge are as follows: 1. Candidates are now allowed to petition for signatures in the SGA office, 2. Campaigning in now allowed on election day and 3. Clubs are now allowed to contribute up to $1,000 of their budget to a candidate. I agree with the editorial that these new rules would help DiSilvio have an easier time campaigning than last year. However, what this anonymous writer forgets to mention in his or her article, is that these rules will make it easier for anyone worth voting for to run. I would hope that if a person wanted to run, he or she would be involved in SGA already and would be in the office enough as to know how everything works, thus eliminating the first rule discussed as an advantage for only DiSilvio.

The writer argues that since DiSilvio has an office on campus, that campaigning on election day would give him an advantage. First off, any candidate running for President would hopefully be on campus all day on election day whether or not he or she lives here or has an office here. As a commuter, he still has to drive himself to that office every morning just as every other candidate would have to get to the Student Center that day.

Clubs being allowed to contribute to a candidates campaign fund would simply benefit the candidates most willing to help clubs and organizations . The editorial makes the claim that DiSilvio having the support of the College Republicans and the Students for Life organizations would give him some sort of advantage. Any candidate could easily attain more funding by winning over the other clubs with his or her platform just as he or she would have to do with the students. With constant squabbling over budgets and the lack of money among clubs, most organizations would not even be able to contribute a meaningful amount of money. The clubs with the largest budgets are Hofstra Concerts, Entertainment Unlimited and the African People’s Association and they, who would perhaps be the most willing to donate, do not have any pre-determined loyalties to DiSilvio.

So having discredited last weeks editorial, I cannot help but wonder why the piece was written in the first place. In his year as President, DiSilvio has an amazing list of accomplishments and regardless of whether or not he has a component, DiSilvio still plans to campaign and try to win over all students, or at least, as many as he can. His plans for next year are monumental and I dare the writer of that editorial to experience all the events DiSilvio has planned for the 2007-2008 academic year and say another word against him. Peter DiSilvio is the hope that one day America will have politicians who are not dealing in shady practices. He does so much for the student body that I really am shocked anyone would call him corrupt and can only imagine that it is merely some ignoramus with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than write editorial because it is surely not someone who has been paying attention for the last seven months.

The writer is an SGA senator.