Cosmo Kramer uses fictional roots to narrowly defeat Will Smith for USGD presidential title

April 1, 2014 Hugh Jass 2,268 Comments

Caption — Fictional character Cosmo Kramer, pictured at right, narrowly defeated actor Will Smith 1137 votes to 1336 votes in a surprisingly entertaining and supposedly important USGD presidential election. (Glove Urn Mint/PD)

Fictional character Cosmo Kramer narrowly defeated actor Will Smith in a surprisingly entertaining and supposedly important Undergraduate Student Government Downtown presidential election.

Kramer won the election with 1337 votes to Smith’s 1336 in an election that came down to the wire and saw candidates promising everything from alien invasion insurance to new episodes of Seinfeld.

With the win, Kramer became the first fictional character elected to a position traditionally filled by real people.

“To rule the people, one must walk among them,” Kramer said in an acceptance speech that emphasized his fictional roots. Kramer had been considered out of the running for USGD president after Seinfeld ended in 1998, but rallied over the past three weeks to take the win.

Kramer’s campaign promised hourly jokes delivered via MyASU and new episodes of Seinfeld to be streamed every week in place of student government meetings.

Neither candidate knew that he was nominated for the position until notified by student government election staff after spring break, but sprang into action despite the unexpected nature of the campaign.

Former USGD President Frank Smith III said that he felt the elections committee made a mistake, but that an oddly worded elections code prevented him from challenging the ruling.

Walter Cronkite School student Videog Proj said that she voted for Kramer because she liked Seinfeld and wanted to see more.

“I just wanted more Seinfeld,” she said. “My friend, Threeo Onekid, said he didn’t vote because he didn’t want to take a stance on 1990s comedies that could reflect on his work in the future.”

Will Smith said that by electing a fictional character, ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus had doomed itself to destruction by aliens that would harvest resources and organs from the city.

“Humanity is going to be destroyed,” Smith said. “Only the president can authorize a suicide mission to hack into the alien command ship, and this president seems more concerned with jokes than survival.”

Kramer denied that the aliens were planning to destroy the planet and said they would only be involved with human organ harvesting and approving student organization funds.

“I’ve spoken with our new senators, and they are more than willing to work with alien faculty and staff on both the Budget Allocations and newly formed Mothership Operations committees,” Kramer said.

Smith ran on a platform that included lowering tuition by flying a plane into the offices of the Board of Regents and hacking their computers, opportunities to test for internships at local financial institutions and free companion dogs to help students prepare for the apocalypse.

Smith campaign manager M. Night Shyamalan said that the loss was planned from the beginning. Shyamalan’s campaigns have received fewer and fewer votes every year.

Smith’s running mate and son, Jaden Smith, said that there were still questions to be asked about how a Kramer presidency will function.

“How can our votes be real if the candidate isn’t real?” he asked.

After the vote totals were announced, Russian President Vladmir Putin called Kramer to congratulate him on the win. Putin expressed hopes that under new leadership, the campus would be more open to the possibility of invasion or coup. Kramer declined to say whether he would participate with Putin in the traditional, post-election, shirtless horseback-riding ceremony.

Other candidates that accrued votes included deceased economist Adam Smith, Dutch speed skater Yep Kramer and two-term USGD President and former ASU student Joseph Grossman.

Grossman said that even though he lost, he will return next year on a platform based on his connections in the Arizona Alien Affairs lobby.

Even with this election’s astronomical stakes, the broader downtown Phoenix community really didn’t care.

“It really doesn’t matter,” downtown advocate Peter Perspiration said. “It doesn’t matter who was elected. Nothing will change unless students get involved with the community.”