I’ll be honest; I don’t like the Portland Spectator. It’s a weakly written, suspiciously funded conservative paper, which seems to care only about personal jabs and slandering all other events or programs on campus. Being a progressive thinker, I don’t agree with the political ideology presented in the publication. I also wonder where all the articles written by females are. So I don’t like the paper, so what? Well what really gets to me is the relationship between the Spectator and several PSU senatorial candidates and their party. Since I am running for a senate seat some may say this letter is just sour grapes, but my issue comes from the strategies of certain individuals on Cory Murphy’s slate (which consists of many Spectator contributors). One specific issue is regarding the slate’s recruitment policies. Whilst talking to another senatorial candidate, this person told me of a call they recently got from none other than Shahriyar Smith, an editor of the Spectator. Mr. Editor asked this person if she wanted to be on the Murphy slate and offered tempting reasons why: free publicity. When this person was not convinced on this criteria alone, she asked what partisanship or what affiliation this slate and presidential candidate had. “Conservative”, responded the editor of the Spectator. When the person said, “Well then I shouldn’t tell you I’m gay then,” the Spectator editor responded that being gay is immoral and wrong but it was ok, because it would make their slate LOOK more diverse. Not be, but look. This is a good example of the type of practice that seems to be commonplace around the Spectator: tokenism and misconception. With such a surge of blind patriotism and conservatism running rampant, I am not surprised to see the Spectator rear its ugly head, but I am a little taken back by the “low blows” and hard ball tactics these people use. I hope that the campus community asks themselves the question “Is this who I want as the PSU governing cabinet?” before casting their ballot this week.
Pollyanne Birge, Senior, Sociology