The results of this year's SGA election could be interpreted a number of ways. The prevailing electorate called for a return to the insider experience of old-guard SGA veterans with their vote for the Chaney/Hennel ticket.
But the duo won by only 29 votes, meaning that a significant number of voters saw Weitzman/Abernathy as the better force for restoration of a practically crippled SGA.
T.A. Jones' administration called forth a spirit of change that fell to ruin among charges of ineptitude and corruption. Clearly, ideas alone do not create the substantive reforms SGA so badly needs.
Shea Chaney and Avi Weitzman both agreed that SGA is in serious need of some readjustment, and both made proposals in their platforms to bring about the necessary changes. Now it is up to the victor to deliver on his promises, proving they were more than mere campaign rhetoric.
This year's infighting proved that internal relations are vital to the president's political survival. Chaney must be able to work diplomatically with the Senate to accomplish all he has promised, but at the same time, he must stand firm behind the reforms students that students demand.
While students apparently want the experience of an insider, they clearly don't want a return to the kind of cronyistic inbreeding that has infested the organization before.
Chaney's supporters have high expectations. Chaney's opponents have serious doubts. Both will be watching him and Vice President Heather Hennel as well like hawks.
But perhaps of greater concern to the new leaders in the executive branch and the Senate will be those students who won't be watching at all.
The apathetic, uninterested or simply uninformed need a reason to get involved. Those who didn't vote most certainly should have, but regardless of their voting records all students pay the activity fee and are thus a part of SGA.
"Visibility leads to accountability," Chaney and Hennel said.
If they are to live up to their own claim, they must not only take up the awesome task of getting the attention of a disinterested student body, but they also must succeed in that task as no other administration has before.
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