The Road to Here

Hey everyone! There are just FIVE DAYS LEFT until Spring State begins, and once it begins...it'll be just about the greatest JSA experience I've ever had, win or lose.

To start off, I want to look back to this point in time one year ago--before Spring State 2010. I was running for SER Senator, alongside Andrew Leontis, Liam Nuebling, Sigal Willner and Samir Khanna. Andrew and Liam would go on to get elected, and are running for Governor and re-election as SER Senator, respectively. Sigal, like Samir and I, lost, but is running for SER Senator yet again this year. Samir became this year's Director of Thought Talks, and Xavier's lone representative on Cabinet.

Me? Well, I became the state's first-ever Sergeant-at-Arms (a more understandable title: Director of Decorum). But before I even applied for Cabinet this year--in fact, shortly after I found out I'd lost--David Crosson, one of Servite's most admired JSAers and arguably the best debater I've ever met, found me and told me, "Hey, I just want to tell you something: Congratulations."

I was confused. He continued.

"You don't want to be Senator. You'll just wind up the LTG's slave all of next year--I'm about to go tell our guy that, since he just won. There's better stuff for you. Go get it."

And man, was he right.

Shortly after that--not immediately after, but around the middle of May, when Cabinet applications were released--I thought to myself, "There's a reason I was in the Speaker's Department this whole year. David was completely right...there's probably a good reason I didn't get Senator, and I'm going to find it."

In early June, I sent in my Cabinet application, and to be completely honest, I would've loved to go back to the Speaker's Department--but that wasn't quite on my mind, nor was it my top priority. My top choice was Chief of Staff, followed by Director of CIA, and then Speaker Pro Tempore. After I sent my application in, I reviewed the copy I'd printed for myself, and after going through it a couple of times, I saw something: My arguments for Speaker Pro Tempore seemed far more convincing than the ones I had for Chief of Staff OR Director of CIA.

So, when I opened my Cabinet application response letter, I actually felt relieved that I didn't get Chief of Staff, or Director of CIA. I was excited to embrace my role as Sergeant-at-Arms, although quite honestly, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do, even after I'd called and talked to our Governor, Matt Saunders, AND our Lieutenant Governor, Pam Chang. I basically knew that my job was to innovate ways to keep debates and conventions run professionally. So, I ran with it.

As Sergeant-at-Arms this year, I had several ideas for ensuring professionalism in debates and conventions. Among them was the one that got the most successfully implemented--debate logistics.

If you're on Cabinet, or even if not, you may have gotten an email from our Director of Logistics, Helen Ray, about helping with convention logistics--basically, working at the registration desk, sweeping the halls for people out of debates, etcetera. I engineered debate logistics, with involved people signing up to monitor one debate every block (or, as the case was, every other block). If a situation arose, they would exit the room and call me, and I would simply let those in attendance of that debate know that things needed to stay professional. And you know what? I never got any calls.

Anyway, before any of this stuff for Sergeant-at-Arms came about, and a couple of days before I got my response letter, I found myself hoping I got put in the Speaker's Department again. Just ask Ryan Luchs; I talked to him almost DAILY about what I hoped to get on Cabinet, up until I got my letter. Was I disappointed when I didn't get Speaker Pro Tempore? A little bit, I won't lie to you. But did that disenchant me from running for Speaker? Not at all.

I decided while I was at the UCLA Institute on Media and Politics (around the middle of August last year) that I was going to run for Speaker, and nothing would change my mind about it. And between then and Congress, where I declared my candidacy (exactly 6 months and 11 days, for those of you who were curious), nothing did. Nothing fazed me--not even when I heard about two friends of mine that intended to run for Speaker. After Congress, at the SER One Day, when a fourth candidate entered the fray--nothing fazed me.

Running for Speaker of the Assembly is something I've planned on since this past summer, as you now see. But a lot of my speeches, and my recent video about the Assembly, made mention of apathy. On my campaign Formspring, I've defended myself from accusations of falling into apathy if I get elected. But I have never, in detail, gotten to tell my story as to WHY I know I wouldn't become apathetic as Speaker. And for the sake of space constraints, I won't do that here. But I most definitely WILL explain that in my next post!

So stay tuned, stay committed, and stay supportive; vote Aaron Burkart for Speaker of the Assembly!