Volunteer Pride, the third party to enter this year’s SGA elections, met Tuesday for its first interest meeting of the semester.
Chaz Molder, VP co-campaign manager, was pleased with the party’s first meeting.
“We are very excited with the number of people that showed up tonight,” Molder said. “Over 75 people packed the Hermitage Room to see what Volunteer Pride was all about … these folks were made up of a very diverse body on this campus.”
Molder also said VP had been organizing for several months and didn’t want to officially announce until candidates began requesting petition signatures.
Arthur vonWerssowetz, VP events coordinator, said being the last party to announce its candidacy shouldn’t affect their chances during the election.
“I think the other parties might have rushed into it,” vonWerssowetz said. “We took our time and wanted to make sure we had everything straight. We’re right on track to where we need to be.”
Those in attendance heard from VP presidential candidate Matt McDonald, who outlined his goals for the campaign.
“There is one quintessential thing that makes our party different from the rest,” McDonald said. “Other parties focus on everything but never accomplish anything. We are going to keep our goals on the real issues.”
McDonald said university parking, utilization of student skills, overcrowded classes and partnerships with businesses on the Strip were among his platform priorities. He encouraged the crowd to run on the VP ticket.
“We’re going to come out on top in April,” McDonald said. “We have the best ideas and the best people, so we should come out (victorious).”
Doug White, VP vice presidential candidate also welcomed and addressed the crowd. He said keeping his party as diverse as possible was one of the focuses for the campaign.
“Some of these people (here tonight) don’t even know what SGA does,” White said. “That’s what we want, as large and diverse of a group as we can get.”
Rachel Clement, the other campaign manger for VP, said the event went well.
“We’re the last party in this race, but we’re still getting off to a good start,” Clement said. “The attendance tonight means a lot to us.”
