While Student Government presidential candidates battled over topics like Greek life and funding for clubs, freshmen William Tift and Tyler Hanson — though not officially on the ballot — offered an alternative campaign platform. The Crow’s Nest took a moment to speak with Tift and Hanson about running SG as a monarchy, “Game of Thrones” and their campaign mascot, steak.
The Crow’s Nest: Where did the idea to “run for president” come from?
Tyler Hanson: Me and Will were hanging out in my dorm room watching TV, and let’s say something cool like making out with ladies, when [we] just started discussing how funny it would be if we were president of the school. There’s probably not really a better reason than that. Maybe we were feeling sort of political. I think it was the night of the presidential debate.
William Tift: The need to end the crime and corruption that goes on in our beloved school. I’ve seen what evil lurks in the shadows. I know why people are afraid to leave the University Student Center at night. I have heard what the crooks and criminals that hold the true power at this school have been planning. And if you vote for us, we guarantee to make our beloved USF a safer, happier school. Wait, what was the question again? Oh, scratch all of what I just said. Tyler suggested it and I thought it would be fun.
CN: Describe the inspiration behind your campaign slogan, “I know we’re a terrible choice…but so is everybody else.”
Hanson: OK this, well, it’s actually a sort of paraphrase of a quote from a character in the third “Game of Thrones” book when he’s running for Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, which is so nerdy and I also just realized would have been some points against us if we were real candidates. I actually did like the candidates who were really running but I thought it would be a fun thing to campaign under.
Tift: I’m going to be frank with you. We are a pretty bad choice. But we also believe that the other options have bad intentions as well. I mean think about it; have you ever seen Mark or Jimmy in the same room with Lex Luthor? It is obvious to me that one of the two options is Lex Luthor, while the other option has to be robot programmed by Lex Luthor. That way, it’s a win-win for Lex Luthor. I don’t know if you guys like a tyrant as a president, but I surely don’t. That’s why I want to bring back the monarchy…Wait, can we scratch off that last part about the monarchy? We can’t? Shoot.
CN: What’s up with the steak?
Hanson: Well it was a Wednesday which is the day when me and my friends would often grill, so I had just happened to be thawing some steak when we started doing this campaign. Then for one of the photos we thought it would be funny to hold the steak because it looked weird. It was super gross. It dropped blood everywhere. Later on we ended up eating it, but it wasn’t very good. It ended up making one of our friends fairly sick, but he probably ate about three pounds of steak that night.
Tift: Steak is a great source of calcium and it builds strong bones. Or is that milk? The point is that steak puts hair on the chest. And I don’t want a wimpy campus, parading about in merriment. I want a manly campus, doing manly things like chopping down trees and growing beards. We need our men to be more manly, we need our children to be more manly, and we need our women to be more manly…We can’t edit out that last part, can we? Thought so.
CN: Jimmy Richards and Jordan Iuliucci took campaign photos on the bronze bull.
Mark Lombardi-Nelson and Christa Hegedus took theirs in front the of the USF emblem. You guys took yours in a shower. Why is that?
Hanson: Ours wasn’t symbolic so much as the steak was dripping quite a bit of blood and I didn’t really want to get blood anywhere else in the room. Showers are easy to clean.
Tift: Unlike our competition, we recognize the scum creeping about the campus. We took it in the shower to symbolize how we will wash away these phonies. To cleanse our school of all that fraud that has been going on for too long. To end all those scandals that we know are happening.
CN: In our last issue, we asked all the candidates about the top three issues they’d tackle as president and vice president. What would yours have been?
Hanson: No. 1 issue was obviously the steak; we would switch all food to steak in The Reef. Vegetarians could have cheeseburgers. We also had a proposed policy of switching our Student Government over to a monarchy. Ruler of the school would then pass to Will’s first-born male heir. We also would have instituted a 300 percent increase in tuition to pay for all of the steak and trappings of royalty.
Tift: First off, we need to raise tuition by 300 percent. I know what you are thinking. “William, that’s outrageous! Why would you do such a thing?” Which leads me to my second issue: replacing all the food in the Reef with steak. And don’t you worry out there, vegetarians. We’ll still have cheeseburgers just for you. Our third issue is re-establishing the monarchy. Presidents were so last year; kings are where it is at. Plus, we will be the only school with a monarch, making us better than every other school out there.
CN: Are either of you actually interested in Student Government?
Hanson: I actually am, at some point, maybe next year I will probably run for senator. I learned quite a bit about how the Student Government works while fake trying to be in charge of it. Mostly through people telling us why we couldn’t actually be voted for.
Tift: I was interested in Student Government, but then I heard she had a boyfriend. Since then, we have just been friends. She’s really nice though.
CN: Did you vote in this SG election? Why or why not?
Hanson: I did, me and Will went in and voted, we tried to take pictures for our campaign, but they turned out pretty bad. But I did make a point of voting for the candidate that I thought was best. I made sure I knew my opponents. It was sort of sad, the website said or write in a candidate below, but then the option didn’t actually work.
Tift: As Harry Houdini once said, “A good magician never reveals his secrets.” But since I don’t know how to do any magic tricks, I can confidently tell you that I did. I did it because it’s my right as an American to vote and I believe in democracy.
Just fooling with you! I don’t believe in democracy… But I did vote.
CN: Do you feel the student body made a mistake by not voting Tift and Hanson?
Hanson: Not really, we had some pretty bad policies. And I don’t really even like steak that much. I wish we had run under chicken.
Tift: Was crashing the Titanic a mistake? Was the BP oil spill a mistake? Was buying a Prius a mistake? OF COURSE IT WAS A MISTAKE! People do not realize how essential it is to vote for us. A vote for us is a vote for steak, and who doesn’t love steak?
CN: What’s next for you two? Will the Tift and Hanson campaign be back next year?
Hanson: Uhhh, it might. I would sort of want to come up with some new features to run with, I wouldn’t want to just do the same steak campaign. If it happens it will be bigger and better. And we’ll probably fill out paper work. I also do want to thank my campaign manager/graphic designer Dylan, he did most of the work of the campaign while me and Will just laughed at our own jokes and hung like eight posters.
Tift: Our campaign will be just like Santa Clause (except we won’t have Tim Allen as our main star). Yes, we will be back next year in a red suit and a sack full of steak. Our next shenanigan has not yet been announced, but we shall keep you updated!
