Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanners52674
One thing I found interesting is that The Machine backed candidate is out of state from Illinois.
From what I've read about The Machine they are/were mostly Alabama residents and a pipeline to post college government and society.
Is having an OOS homecoming nominee unusual?
|
If you watch the interview with the Alabama's current (non-Machine-backed) SGA president (embedded in the AL article that Ninja Poodle posted), he says that, in his experience, a lot of The Machine's representatives are from out of state. I found it very interesting that out of staters seem to be so involved in The Machine.
Here is the video directly:
http://videos.al.com/al/2015/04/univ..._sga_pres.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by NinjaPoodle
So, I scoured GC for 'Machine' threads and found this in one:
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoosier
Alabama's Machine may be the longest running/best known, and the secret to their success was secrecy, political skills, maybe a little money from alumni, and organization.
If almost all of Alabama's Greeks can vote for the Machine's candidates, they win.
And if an outstanding dedicated non-Machine candidate runs, he might find he's also opposed by several attractive non-Machine-ites, and the non-Greek vote is split - Machine wins.
And if the non-Machine guy happens to win, he faces a student govt. already filled with Machine allies, and few real changes are possible.
At UGa, it is said that the (Gridiron?) machine Student Body Pres. is promised a seat in the state legislature as soon as he gets a law degree.
|
from this thread http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...hlight=machine |
This is exactly what seems to have happened to Bama's SGA president with regards to them blocking his Chief of Staff nomination, based on the video embedded in the AL article. It's completely disrespectful and appalling. The SGA president seems like such a nice, intelligent young man and I really hope that he is able to connect with them and make some real change on their campus.
I didn't go to a SEC school, but I had friends at UF, and, based on what they told me, it seems like they may have a similar situation with their student government, in which Greeks are expected to band together and and vote as a block in order to maintain control and their interests.