Daily Nexus Riddle number 33: What’s sleazy, insulting and cost nearly $700,000? Answer: The campaign tactics for the Yes and No on Recall camps.

After little over a year, the recall debacle has come to and end, with Gail Marshall preserving her seat as 3rd District Supervisor. Isla Vista residents and UCSB students should feel glad that the mess is over. No longer will outrageous and offensive campaign advertisements insult our intelligence and assault our sensibilities.

The Yes on Recall campaign slung its fair share of mud at Marshall. They accused her of everything from being undemocratic to ruining the environment. It seemed either like an attempt to discourage student-voter turnout or just a sign of a petty, spiteful group.

The latter would be the safer bet.

Worst of all were the riddle advertisements, presenting factoids about things ranging from the speed of UCSB women to cars in I.V. The Gauchoholics PAC – not to be confused with the Gauchoholic party, funded these advertisements as well, making them a double slap in the face. It’s bad enough when people outside of I.V. insult the student population, but it’s even worse when the mudslinging comes from within.

Jim Thomas allied himself with the scum of the earth and allowed for these cretins to dump their venom on the rest of us. If he decides to run for supervisor again in 18 months, hopefully the students here will remember the disrespect he and his bedfellows showed us.

But you can’t blame the Yes on Recall folks for all the immaturity and obnoxious behavior.

Marshall made a hard push in the past few weeks to show students how much she’s supposedly done for I.V., suggesting that a recall maybe the most effective way to get your representative to work hard for you. She unleashed a flood of press releases, taking credit for practically every improvement in I.V. except for the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

Even our Associated Students president, Chrystine Lawson, got into the act with her pro-Marshall television advertisement. How funny she should speak for the students of UCSB without A.S. ever passing a position paper on the recall issue.

Both camps used the same arguments to win over the student vote. Marshall’s side claimed that Thomas would ride into I.V. with his Mongol hordes. Thomas’ people seemed to feel that Marshall would wrap an iron curtain around I.V. if she remained as supervisor.

But politics are politics, and both Thomas and Marshall are politicians at heart. They have the right to campaign how they want and a right to say whatever they want, but students don’t have to listen to the bitter and childish name-calling.

It’s just a shame that when political animals fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled and buried in feces.