The Vision Party, along past opposition parties that failed to reform Student Government, now borders on extinction.  The last two elections saw Vision devastatingly defeated by the new Progress party, not able to win a single seat this fall.

The question, however, remains as to exactly why Vision lost all six SG elections it participated in.  The simple answer is that Vision failed because in the end it never had any true or lasting support from the student body.  Vision, like many of its predecessors, was never really a popular party.

Unfortunately, sometimes true political reality is deceptive even to experienced politicians.  The trouble is that opposition parties like Vision, Alliance, and the Independent Student Coalition all stereotyped SG as ruled by evil Greek-lettered Machiavellians, twirling their moustaches in the Reitz Union's 3rd floor while planning against the will of the majority.

They viewed themselves as saviors, crusading to end "Blue Key" oppression.

However, the student electorate is a bit more rational in its view of SG and is more or less satisfied with it.  Instead of realizing this, Vision must justify its perennial electoral failure by inventing that something--perhaps a secret conspiracy--is keeping them out of the power they deserve.  Words such as 'undemocratic', 'corrupt', and 'apathy' are thrown around with great abandon.  But if students choose not to vote, it is only because they don’t really have anything to vote for.  Even many 'anti-SG activists' have distrusted Vision and held it in some suspicion.  Even the generally pro-reform Alligator failed to endorse Vision in the last three elections.

Of course, it's true that in some electoral areas significant anti-SG feeling exists.  After all, some people are negatively partial towards identifiable constituencies such as the greeks.  And, as many of those grecians are themselves deeply involved with Student Government, those voters end up feeling unrepresentative and objecting to the status quo.  The trouble is, hating and cursing SG hoping is one thing; being convinced that Vision should take over is another thing altogether.

In truth, the vast majority of students are more or less satisfied with their student government.  They are not interested in campaigning with, or even voting for, themes like 'Smash the blood sucking Oppressor'.  Besides, did Progress' victory in the fall actually hurt those students abstain from voting?  Most likely not, since those students can still join organizations subsidized by SG fees, visit the pro bono Student Legal Aid office, and still attend any of the concerts still held by Student Government Productions.  True, fundamental conflicts allocating money or choosing concerts still remain in SG, but such problems always exist in any government, no matter who wins the election.

But sometimes, political reality is hard to accept.  After this fall's election, the Vision Party campaign chairman tried to explain why his party failed to win a single seat:  "Especially when you are opposing a political machine that is virtually undefeatable... a coalition of volunteers will never have the manpower or resources that a political machine such as Progress can command."

This is another unfortunate occurrence of politicians misreading the writing on the wall.  For if Vision is so loved by the student body, and Progress so hated, why then did Progress have so many volunteers and Vision have none?  It seems that if Progress had more volunteers it is only because more students wanted to support Progress instead of Vision.  Are we to feel sorry for the losing party because it never was able to appeal to the vast majority of the student body?

In any case, how can any party be undefeatable when all it takes to beat it is to have more votes than the other party?  Is Progress really undefeatable, or is Vision just unelectable until it can win more votes than Progress?

The truth is that the vast majority of students are happy enough with SG not to care about joining any revolution against it.  And people satisfied with the way things are tend either to vote for the status quo, or at least not vote against it.

In the end, parties unable to gather the necessary popular support to win should not be surprised on election night.