Mud Flies in Adams Campaigns

Most Undergraduate Council campaign posters proudly exhibit artistic and Mac-processed graphics in green, yellow or pink: dinosaurs, a child, photos. But on the typical motley bulletin board in Adams C entry lies a different brand of flyer.

It's black and white. It's drawn with a magic marker. It has a lot of words. It contains few words pertaining to the election, save "Vote for me!" In short, the campaign poster looks crude compared to its flowery and poetic companions.

And the message of this candidate also differs from that of her competitors. While the typical "Vote For Me" statement appears at the bottom of this poster as on all others, the body of the text consists of a sober discussion of the issues that the Council should take up rather than trying to tickle the funnybone of voters.

"What kind of election is this?" Farai Chideya '90, the producer and subject of the poster asks on her poster. She later replies, "This is a name recognition campaign. The person with the best name/most posters/best posters wins."

The Adams House sophomore's poster defends its lack of design, "Every time I put up a visually cutesy poster I felt guilty... They state no issues, have no substance. Neither do all of the other candidates."

Chideya said that she wants her poster to inspire the voters to "think" and to promote an "issues campaign," rather than the popularity contest she said she thinks it has been in the past. She added that she does not mean to attack personally the other candidates from Adams, but the campaign as a whole.

Among the issues the poster lists are a "petition for a new academic calendar" and "easy access to university policy, esp. financial." Chedaya said she chose to emphasize issues rather than try to entertain potential voters because she "believe[s] in the intelligence of the Harvard University students.

Meanwhile other Adams House residents have taken a very opposite approach. For instance Rudy Ruiz '90 and his roomate Peter Clateman '90, who are also running for the council, have engaged in a personal duel. Both posters are written in the same style-black handwritten xeroxed on white paper with a black strip with white writing on top and bottom.

One of Ruiz's poster reads, "It pains me deeply to see the art of politics so sullied, but Clateman is an upstart nobody with delusions of grandeur. His only claim to fame is having been seen with me in public." Another charges, "Peter picks his nose and eats it."

Clateman's poster, which calls on Adams residents "to stop Ruiz before it's too late," contends, "I made Rudy Ruiz what he is today and I aim to put him back where I found him--the gutter!"

Ruiz said that two deliberately chose a frivolous approach for their mutual campaign. "It's a joke, it's fun. We don't want to bore [the voters]," Ruiz said.