After the polls closed at midnight, Ivan Rosales and Simon Goldslager’s campaign team came in for a close huddle, congratulating each other.

But after the results came in, the team huddled together again, this time with a much different tone.

Rosales had come in third place for the Student Association presidential race, with 896 votes, losing to Boris Gresely, who received 1,764 votes. Duane Ford, the current vice president of SA, and came in second place with 1,568 votes.

When Rosales received the phone call, the room fell into a dead silence as he walked into a private room, with Goldslager. With the call on speakerphone inside, Rosales replied, “Who won?”

Although he was in another room, word spread quickly, with members of Rosales and Goldslager’s campaign team showing disappointment.

Rosales walked out of the room, with Goldslager following in tears, and addressed his campaign team shortly after.

“We did what we could. I stand by what I said. We killed it, we did an amazing job, I have no regrets for everything that we did. And we’re going to keep pushing, you don’t need a position,” he said. “We’ve seen people that are in this position, and don’t do anything with them. We’ll keep pushing, I know I’m going to do whatever I can.”

He said even though he was not elected, he’ll continue to push for the campus to pay more attention to hunger issues, and also using his connections with the chancellor-designate, Kent Syverud to improve the campus.

Rosales, a junior accounting and policy studies major, joined SA during its 55^th session, where he served as chair of the Student Life Committee, which he later resigned from.

He ran on a platform with three pillars: academic excellence, student engagement and diversity.

His running mate, Simone Goldslager, a junior advertising major, had previously not been in SA, which Rosales said would bring a fresh perspective to SA, if she were elected as vice president.

Goldslager said the entire process was a learning experience, and agreed with Rosales, that she did not need a position within SA to get change done.

Even after the loss, the team had still all congratulated everyone, making jokes after when their next campaign meeting would be, and making runs to Taco Bell.

“The quality of people that we have chosen for our campaign is definitely life-long friends and peers that we can work with,”said Jennifer Bacolores, Rosales’ campaign manager.

Rosales said he wishes Gresely good luck, and hoped he could handle the new term limits.

“You have three semesters, not just two, so you’d better not burn out at that senior year,” he said. “I think he has really great ideas, and I’ll be keeping updated and in touch with the three phases as it goes along.”

Published on November 15, 2013 at 1:48 am

Contact Alfred: alng@syr.edu

@alfredwkng