The Comeback Kid
J.P. Blackford's recipe for dominance in GW's senate: one man, one vote, nine terms.
Cover Story
J.P. Blackford studies engineering at George Washington University. Most everyone on campus knows of him. More than a few have said his name in vain.
Blackford, to be sure, doesn't cut a prominent physical presence on the GW campus. Like many of his classmates, he hasn't lost his rounded baby face. His skin is pale, his hair short, dark, and parted on the side. He walks quickly and straight ahead, undistracted by the outside world. He looks, in sum, like someone who's more comfortable interfacing with software than people.
And Blackford's campus fame has nothing to do with his dissertation on boat traffic density in San Francisco Bay. Instead, it comes from his work in the senate of the campus government, the Student Association (SA). The group's charter, approved by the university's board of trustees in 1990, defines the SA's responsibilities as protecting the rights of students, encouraging participation in university policymaking, and reporting "on matters of concern to the students." The senate functions as the SA's unicameral legislative branch.
Blackford, who grew up a few blocks from Union Station in Northeast D.C., was slow to embrace a career in campus politics. It wasn't until his senior year that he decided to get on the ballot. "I had a friend who was running for office, and he said, 'Why don't you run for office, too?'" Blackford remembers. "It wasn't anything big....It was just like, Why not run for the SA? OK, sure." ... Continued 
Issue of Mar. 21 - 27, 2003
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