Heading the Council: Complement or Conflict?

As Undergraduate Council Chair Evan B. Rauch '91-'92 tells it, he and Vice Chair Joel D. Hornstein '91-'92 first met in Rauch's room in Canaday in October, 1988--within a month of arriving at Harvard.

Rauch had just been elected to the Undergraduate Council as a representative of the Canaday/Union district, and Hornstein was a first-year representative from the Southwest Yard.

Despite his inexperience, Hornstein was campaigning to be secretary of the council, so he was stumping across campus, individually lobbying the body's newly elected members.

Rauch remembers that he did eventually vote for Hornstein at the officer elections that Sunday--more out of a sense of solidarity than anything else. The two had just been named among the four "progressive" first-year representatives endorsed by the Perspective--and Rauch felt a form of kinship with the fellow liberal.

That was two years and a week ago.

Now Rauch and Hornstein occupy the two top spots on Harvard's Undergraduate Council--but it's Rauch who is number one and Hornstein who is number two.

Last Sunday, Rauch won election as the body's chair, beating Hornstein and five other candidates. Hornstein settled for the vice chair, claiming that he had been supporting Rauch from the beginning and had only run for the position to prevent a worse candidate from winning.

Over the last two years, Rauch has served on the council's academics committee and on the services committee. By the middle of his second semester, he had earned a spot on the council's executive board by winning election as the council's secretary.

Hornstein remembers Rauch's campaign speech for that post as one that contrasted sharply with the presentations of the two candidates he defeated: Andy F. Chao '92 and Hornstein himself.

As Hornstein tells it, he and Chao approached the podium in jackets and ties, and gave serious speeches detailing how they wanted to energize the council from the secretary's seat.

But Rauch, wearing a sweater and jeans, gave a speech that made fun of the council's seriousness. This would be the beginning of Rauch's reputation for dry, witty speeches given in a monotone--speeches that would lighten the mood of many meetings and earn him council goodwill.

Rauch began his campaign speech for chair last week with the claim: "I assumed the position of U.C. secretary on March 12, 1989. Since then, the two Germanys have united, Nelson Mandela has been freed, Earth Day has made people everywhere more conscious of their environment and the butterfly of democracy has begun to emerge from the cocoon of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. I take no responsibility for the Persian Gulf crisis."

When he gave up his first council title last Sunday, Rauch had been the longest serving secretary in the council's eight-year history--a stint which allowed him to watch the inner workings of two council administrations and compile inside knowledge of council's affairs as perhaps no previous council chair candidate ever had.

So when election time rolled around last week, Rauch ran a very organized, mainstream campaign, taking informed stands on most of the council's major issues. Council insiders speculate that he was able to pick up a lot of support from incumbents who knew of his work on the council and new candidates who were impressed by his clear knowledge of the council's inner workings and its history.

According to unsuccessful council chair candidate Randal S. Jeffrey '91, Rauch won that night "because he was secretary for a year and a half and was very competent at that job plus also he was a moderate candidate as opposed to either Joel [Hornstein] or myself."

Vocal Critic from the Right

Although he was congratulated by Perspective for his progressive views, Hornstein has since been a vocal critic from the right of the council who has opposed council stands on issues such as the University's investments in South Africa and its involvement with the Pittston coal miner's strike last fall.

His sponsorship of a controversial proposal to bring the Reserve Officers Training Corps back to campus enraged many campus liberals, particularly since his support did not flag when most council members had rejected the proposal because of the military's policy of excluding gays and lesbians.

"It's really odd," Rauch says. "Last year he definitely became the right wing of the council."

Although few suspected Hornstein's move to the right on many issues, observers generally acknowledge that as soon as he won his council seat, he sent clear signals that he would be one to watch.

He ran for council secretary that fall, losing to David A. Battat '91, and then again in the spring, falling to Rauch. He also made bids to be vice chair of the academics committee both semesters, losing to former chair candidate Lori L. Outzs '91 in the fall and finally winning the position in the spring--over Rauch ("I'm one and two against Evan," he jokes).

Hornstein served on the council's academics committee his first year, and returned to that committee when he won election last year in Quincy House.

The former New York City native and Hunter College High School student body president says it was his interest in academic issues that first brought him onto the council.

"I thought that Harvard was probably the most exciting place to be academically in the world," he says, adding that he thought he would be able to make great changes at the University by getting involved in academic issues.

"I soon found out I was quite mistaken," he admits now. But Hornstein's new-found cynicism has not dissuaded him from working to change the council.

So when Hornstein threw his hat into the ring a few weeks ago, few council incumbents were surprised--except, claims Hornstein, he himself.

An Obvious Rising Star

When asked to name the obvious rising stars in his class, Rauch unhesitatingly says, "well Joel, it was fairly obvious, as well as Guhan [Subramanian '92, chair of last year's council]...Anyone who runs for an office their first semester on the council is kind of not being too subtle about their ambitions."

Despite declaring earlier that he would not seek the council chair, Hornstein reversed that position just days before the election. He says he would never have run had he known Rauch was going to win, but that he felt forced to run out of fear that a less competent candidate might take the post.

His chair campaign was a complete contrast to his campaign for secretary two years ago--except for the outcome.

Hornstein actually had no campaign to speak of. He did not lobby representatives, except to try to persuade eventual candidate Jonathan D. Unger '92 to run, which would have relieved him of the burden of running himself, he says.

Hornstein also was the only candidate to miss the chair's debate and he did not formally decide that he would run until nominated election night. With only quickly sketched remarks, wearing a sweat-shirt in contrast to the other candidates' suits and ties, Hornstein still came the closest out of six unsuccessful candidates to beating Rauch.

"I think Joel did as well as he did because he is a very effective speaker and he is very clear on his stances," said Bonni N. Grant '92, the council's social chair, on election night.

"I'm ambivalent about the fact that my failure to mount a real campaign helped lead to my defeat for chair," Hornstein says. "On the one hand, I felt a sort of duty to run. It seemed to me I offered the council certain ideas and abilities that no other candidate offered. At the same time, though, I knew I was already into the negative sleep zone.

"Everyone thought [Rauch] deserved the job for the hard work he had put in but no one actually thought he would get it," Hornstein says. "Had I mounted a real campaign I think it's very possible I would have won."

But instead, Hornstein--the candidate who offered perhaps the most clear-cut vision of the council's direction on election night--is the vice chair, responsible not for providing direction to the council, but for more mundane tasks such as keeping attendance and running the office.

In his campaign, Hornstein called for the abolition of the council's political ad hoc committees, and urged a council move towards offering new suggestions for solving student problems within faculty committees.

"I do think the UC has more power than students and most members realize," he says. "When the UC tries to take political stances directly opposed to the declared opinion of the administration, the council is due for failure. Where the UC can make a big difference is introducing ideas which have not been brought up before."

But Rauch's vision of a council with a grassroots agenda, determined less by him than by the rest of the council and its constituents, prevailed on election night.

"How do you get 88 people working?" Rauch asked in his campaign speech. "You can't get them to carry out a pre-set agenda. First of all, they won't. I also doubt my own ability to set such a complete agenda. Becoming UC chair does not make you an expert in everything. Eighty-eight people will work on projects which interest them."

Personality Conflict?

The different political agendas of these two council leaders are matched by their very different personalities.

Hornstein characterizes Rauch as "a very easy person to get along with--I've never seen him lose his temper. Personality-wise we are very different," he adds. "I would have a much more difficult time working with a clone of myself."

But Hornstein says he will subsume his own agenda and dominating personality under Rauch's vision.

"While I certainly do have a strong sense of what the agenda should be, I've accepted that I'm number two and that decisions as to the council's agenda will be made by the executive board as a whole and the council as a whole. My role will be a fairly limited one," he says. "It already is frustrating, but Evan was elected chair, not me."

Perhaps the one thing that will get the two through the year without too much conflict is a shared interest in the council, and in politics in general. Both intend to continue their political careers after graduation, and--as Hornstein remembers it--the two share a curiousity about government as an academic field as well.

In the spring of their first year, Hornstein recalls, the two ended up in the same government tutorial. Although Rauch claims Hornstein didn't bother to show up all that much, Hornstein says they in fact did both spiritedly pursue the subject in class.

"I think both of us were very enthusiastic about the subject matter," Hornstein says. "An outsider looking in might have thought that we were tremendously brown-nosing."