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This Guy Is Taking SBA Elections Way Too Seriously

Nobody cares about law school elections. Except this guy. He cares a lot about them.

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If you’re like most law students, the Student Bar Association never struck you as a productive use of your law school time. Playing pretend government was something high schoolers did to pad their college applications. But once the Tracy Flicks of the world get their measure of validation from a student body that really couldn’t care less, they move on. Others, however, throw their hats into the ring and run for office in between briefing cases. There’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, somebody has to do it.

Not to get all Karl Rove over here, but a prospective law school candidate should understand the electorate. If you’re going to run for SBA, try to be in on the apathy and realize you need to do something unconventionally attention grabbing. Like Anthony Halmon when he performed a self-written campaign rap song. That election didn’t work out for him, but he managed to get his classmates to look up from their casebooks (read: Scotch) for a minute.

On the other hand, this 1L running for SBA Senator might not have gotten that message….

Suleman Malik is a rising 2L at Cardozo and he wants to be YOUR next SBA Senator! Or at least your continuing SBA Senator because he’s already served as an SBA Senator. So he’s an incumbent working this hard? First he prepared a campaign website. Fair enough. While that might seem like apple-polishing overkill, when you think about it, basic websites are so easy to create these days that it’s probably less work than making a sign with magic markers and glitter. And a comprehensive platform page is a lot less intrusive than having to run around and tell every student all the things he won’t actually have the power to do.

As SBA platforms go it’s not all that bad, even if it is based on “Collobaration, Community, and Service” instead of “careful editing.” Come on now, let typos be our business over here at ATL. We’re drunk.

But some fellow students haven’t caught the SBA fever:

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Seriously? None of us care this much. Not even the people elected to the SBA as this level of so-called “campaigning” is pretty much unprecedented. “LightYourFire” my ass…

Indeed. According to the website, the “Light Your Fire” slogan is from Yeats. Here’s a pro tip: don’t quote Yeats if you want law students to take you seriously. Make the slogan something like: “Vote For Me — Then at least one of us has a job!”

And then there’s the campaign video:

Again, technology is a wonderful thing, and he may have slapped that together in about 10 minutes with a Mac. But perception still trumps reality, and making a traditional campaign video just looks hokey. Call the NYU Law Revue team to help spice it up with some comedy.

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Still, despite a few campaigning missteps, you should all get out there and vote for Malik. Because do you want to do this job? At least this guy wants to go to boring meetings. And, hey, maybe you’ll get a Field Day out of it and get the opportunity to watch kids with absolutely no athletic talent flail about trying to connect with a kickball. In fact, that in and of itself should earn your vote.

Unless this is all part of some sort of long-game stratagem where he was just running a campaign that would guarantee he’d earn some the street cred that comes with a shout-out on ATL.

That’s some next-level Frank Underwood shiznit right there and you should be very, very scared of what he could be capable of with a little power.

Very little power.

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