Khalil Hibri (SFS ’07) and Geoff Greene (SFS ’07) wasted no time in throwing open the curtains on their campaign for the GUSA presidency and vice presidency Wednesday night.

With music streaming across Red Square, several dozen campaign staff members dancing and kicking a soccer ball around, and a bag of Tostitos making the rounds, it was clear that this campaign’s core was energized by the midnight opening of the official campaign season.

“These are gonna be some very hard two weeks,” Hibri said to the crowd. “We have some very interesting competition and we’re gonna try to destroy them, basically.”

The other two official candidates for the student organization’s top office, Twister Murchison (COL ’08) and Gage Raley (COL ’07), aren’t backing away from a fight.

“Every campaign is grassroots,” Murchison said. “I think we have a really strong field operation.”

“Without doing it grassroots, there’s no way we could represent the students,” said Salik Ishtiaq (SFS ’07), Murchison’s running-mate. “We’re not really student government, we’re really student advocacy.”

Murchison and Ishtiaq have chosen to postpone the unveiling of their campaign until Monday, not wanting to be interrupted by the Super Bowl and the men’s basketball game against Pittsburgh over the weekend.

“We didn’t want to do anything premature,” urchison said.

That didn’t stop the ticket from showing up at Hibri’s kick-off in order to size up the competition. urchison, who is serving his second term in the GUSA Assembly, said that Hibri’s campaign was not the only high-flying movement on campus.

“We had a huge campaign meeting [Tuesday],” urchison added. “I’d say we’ve got a couple dozen people working on the staff.”

Despite choosing to wait until Monday to begin campaigning in earnest, Murchison said that he was eager to begin the run.

“We’ll definitely be pretty restless,” he said. “We’ll be tireless.”

Raley said that he and his running mate Oxana Miliawa (COL ’07) will not be able to start their campaign until Monday, pending the approval of their campaign materials by the Election Commission.

“We’re kind of tied until then,” Raley said.

Raley did not let the delay prevent him from outlining a broad platform. The first-time GUSA candidate described himself as “worried” about the current state of affairs in student government, focusing on what he said was GUSA’s unwelcoming structure.

“GUSA is kind of a good-old-boys’ organization” he said. “Our biggest worry about GUSA is that it’s so inaccessible that they can’t really represent the student body.”

Raley also said that he was troubled by the low participation of women in GUSA.

“Seventy-two percent of elected GUSA officials are male,” he said. “That means that half of Georgetown students are not adequately represented.”

He said that he had plans for a commission to increase the interest of women in running for the Assembly once the April elections come around.

A write-in campaign by Clayton Keir (SFS ’07) and Patrick Sullivan (COL ’08) is also underway. Keir said that they intend to focus the campaign on extending meal plans into Hoya Court, establishment of a student bar in Riverside Lounge, improvement of Yates’ exercise equipment, campus judicial reform, and higher-quality toilet paper in the dorms.

Hibri outlined the basics of his platform at the campaign kick-off Wednesday night. He said that he plans to pursue the gradual expansion of on-campus wireless internet, increased hours for the GUTS buses and the creation of more grants for student organizations.

But the main focus of his campaign, he said, will be its connection with students. Hibri tried to use the kick-off to define his campaign as a grassroots movement pushing to take GUSA back for students.

“This is what differentiates us from the competition: We’re going to start a grassroots campaign to find out what students want,” he said.

“We are a change from the usual stuff that’s been happening,” he said.

After his campaign kick-off, Hibri seemed relaxed and ready for the campaign to really get moving. The amount of energy given off by his supporters had certainly given him a strong start.