Victory!I actually have to go to bed now (those who know me may be shocked... me going to bed - and before 11:00 PM!!) - because my summer job begins tomorrow morning.
But I wanted to try to contact the '
Save the GOP'ers, to find out the latest about
Mark Harris' election today (see entry below). No one answered that main office line number, which was included in their recent entries
there, but I called Alex Brunk on his cell phone.
I had just pressed refresh on
that page that I had linked to below, and I saw the following, for Mark's race:
District 42 (46 of 66 precincts) 69.7% Republicans 1,705 Mark Harris
1,441 Tom Stevenson
770 Daniel Hackett
That looked promising. When I called
Alex, he could only speak for a minute, but he did say "
we won." I asked if Mark's victory was definite, and it indeed is!
Congratulations to MARK HARRIS for going against the GOP Establishment, and winning!
I had told Mark and Alex earlier that, had it not been Finals Week last week, I might've been in PA with them, helping out, and perhaps I could've brought some
CRs... (
My College Republicans organization did this,
during this past academic year, for special elections in Missouri [
twi
ce] and for the Virginia
gubernatorial race.) But it looks like those who did help out did an excellent job... Regardless of what state you are in, it is great when a College Republican is able to withstand the attacks, stay true to principle, and take on the Power Elite of our party, and is able to serve in a major elected office as a result of these efforts.
I am going to try to go to bed (or something like that...) now, but CONGRATULATIONS once again to Mark on tonight's victory! Here's to many more victories for
true-blue collegiate conservatives in the future!
posted by Aakash at 10:51 PM
Mark Harris for State RepresentativePerhaps I should have posted about this sooner, but there are a lot of things that I need to blog about here... At this moment though, I need to post something about the fact that
the Pennsylvania primary election day is today, and our friend
Mark Harris [from '
Save the GOP'], is a candidate for the State House of Representatives. He is running against ten-year incumbent Rep. Tom Stevenson.
Despite being only 21 [younger than I myself thought - he seems older than that!], Mark has a real chance to unseat the Establishment incumbent, and bring real conservative change to his state.
Pittsburg Tribune-Review:
Reject Tom Stevenson: Nominate Mark HarrisThe live election results should be posted
here in about 45 minutes or so. [Mark's race is in the 42nd Legislative District of Pennsylvania.]
Best of luck to Mark, for a victory tonight, and a successful election in November as well!!
posted by Aakash at 7:45 PM
Belated Jill Stanek Recap, and...I've gotten behind in blogging, but that is nothing [in severity or
consequentiality (is that a word?) ] to how far I've gotten behind, our coursework... And this is Graduate School now!
Some people, such as my parents, will blame this on
CRs... And how active I have led it to be. (One of my roommates commented that it's no wonder that I'm behind, because I live, eat, and breathe CRs...). But that is only part of the story. The College Republicans at UIS are not a 'club' - we used to be, but during this year and last, we transformed this into one of the most active student organizations in the midwestern United States. Even right up through
FINALS WEEK, our events did not stop - We held the first area-wide screening, on Saturday, of the [excellent!!]
Black Republican movie. [That did not go well, but that's another story - though it kind of relates to what I'm talking about.] And earlier that afternoon, we were asked to help with picketing of a
local Planned Parenthood event (which we would've gotten more people for, if we'd had a little bit more notice), while just yesterday, some important conservative leaders came to campus, to meet with some of us (which I wasn't able to attend, due to an academic emergency - described a few paragraphs down). But I will stop myself right there... This is just what happened during the previous three days; if I go any further back, we could be here for awhile.
What I was about to say, however, is that blaming
CRs for me getting behind, and for me getting into academic and health related problems, ignores certain other factors that I've had to deal with... but even if you want to focus on CRs, leading this organization would have been manageable this past year, if certain things had been done differently - some by me (there's always room for improvement) - but especially by certain others. I know that we all have so much on our plates right now, but even those who aren't leaders in our organization have realized - particularly this past semester - that problems were
arising, and even if they haven't been able to provide much direct assistance, they have seen fit to 'give me my
propers'
(thank you Leslie, thank you Joe... thank you Daniel, John Brandon, Andrew, Chris, and the Student Government!! Thank you those who I've neglected to mention here.). This factor is not just the case here - but in general - for the leaders of all volunteer organizations, student or otherwise. If you cannot contribute much, that's the least that should be given (if you believe in what they, and the group, is doing - and want to help sustain their efforts and activity level).
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From what I've observed, within just the past week or so however, I think that things will be different next year.
The past few days have been especially horrific, but things are just now easing up. Yesterday, certain interpersonal conflicts were resolved, in large part... Right as that happened however, I was made aware that my Final Exam was due - not on Thursday as I had thought - but at 4:30 PM that day (yesterday)! And I found this out at about 5:15 PM!! I have pulled an all-nighter [becoming an unfortunate habit now, it seems], but I did spend the night in the
PAC Building, and I am glad to say that I finished the entire Final Exam (essays and all) in one night/morning (it was a take-home test, given to the class a week and a half ago), in addition to completing two other overdue essays that had stacked up. That was all submitted, at about 8:15 this morning. I still have some more work to do for that class (which will have to be completed within the next couple of days), and I still have an incomplete from last semester.
Please pray though, that for my current course, the instructor will give me a few more days to get my pending materials turned in (though I only partially deserve this type of break right now). In addition to health problems that have interfered, this semester and last, a large part of this is my own fault. But there is enough blame to go around, in this situation.
This cannot happen again. Let's hope and pray that it doesn't.
posted by Aakash at 12:18 PM
