<p>What is “Bruin United”? Is it a club?</p>
<p>yes i would like to know too</p>
<p>From what I understand, Bruins United is one of the two major “slates” (basically, political parties) (the other being Students First!) that offer candidates to compete in undergraduate student government elections.</p>
<p>Overly simplified explanation of the two parties:</p>
<p>Bruins United is all about the college experience. They love parties and big high-energy events. They are supported by Greek Life… and unofficially by Jews.</p>
<p>Students First is about diversity and making an inclusive campus. They are supported by pretty much all culturally-related clubs on campus.</p>
<p>My advice on voting? Split ticket. Each party is good for some stuff and sucks at others. (For example, I can’t really imagine a BU candidate who is smart enough… or cares enough about people who truly cannot afford college… to be a good EVP. At the same time I don’t think UCLA would be a particularly fun place if there weren’t at least one Gen Rep from BU.) I like Students First better as people (and they’re also less sketchy imo) but they also don’t have the best track record for putting on cool programs. As far as CSC, CAC, etc. commissioners go, vote for the person who has been in the club. From what I can tell, those divisions of USAC will only put up one nominee each year. Last year some dumb girl from Bruins United decided she would run for CAC commissioner without actually having been in CAC. She almost won, too, and that would have been a disaster.</p>
<p>I like the obviously biased post above. I’ll help explain more clearly.</p>
<p>Bruins United is a party under USAC. This is the name of the student government for the university. Another large party is students first. There a lot of parties that have come and gone in my time but those are the big ones now.</p>
<p>What’s the difference? Well, a better question is, who cares? Many people are seriously involved and passionate about these elections. Usually, its a few 3rd and 4th years. A lot of people who are 1st or 2nd years that are really passionate about these elections haven’t been around long enough to know they aren’t important. </p>
<p>The things that USAC does really has such a small impact to the overall well being of UCLA. The only reason people get really passionate about USAC, is because they have a lot of money, and if you are elected, or get into a position you get BIG PERKS (tuition paid for, books, etc.)</p>
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<p>Actually I think it was originally a coalition of the Bruin Democrats and Bruin Republicans and some Jewish club.</p>
<p>But yeah, it’s basically the Greeks vs the minorities. I would suggest looking at individual candidates’ platforms. USAC seems to be pretty good at implementing those specific ideas … and not much else. I’m not really sure how the semi-demise of Students First is going to affect this though. (Which is actually disappointing - the melodrama USAC elections usually create is quite entertaining)</p>
<p>^ I JUST found out about Students First not running a slate. Interesting. I wonder what happened to cause that. Probably a lot of petty drama, that’s a shame.</p>
<p>Sure enough, Bruins United is once again running someone completely irrelevant to CAC (as far as I can see from the staff positions listed on the website). I don’t understand why they keep doing this. I’m not in CAC so I don’t know personally, but I can’t imagine that they would respond very well to some outsider randomly coming in and taking charge just because they gave away a few free t-shirts.</p>
<p>Yes, I saw “Candidates announced for 2012 USAC election” from Daily Bruin yesterday. Only one person is running for President!? Candidates are Bruin United and Independent. It does sound sort political party to me but I was not sure what exactly they are. Who actually can vote???</p>
<p>All undergrads can vote. I think there’s usually on the order of 40% turnout.</p>
<p>USAC has done nothing significant during my 4 years here… except waste a TON of money on a “homecoming” that no one went to, resulting in many clubs losing funding money.</p>
<p>That said, its embarrassing that Student’s First isn’t running a slate. And lets be real:
it really is Greeks vs minorities (BU vs SF) (at least it used to be until SF disappeared this year)</p>