How to Win Friends and Influence People

Is your roommate secretly running for political office? Even if he or she were, you wouldn't have found out until yesterday. That date has been selected by the Undergraduate Council as the beginning of candidates' campaigns. What is shocking is that the voting is set to begin on October 7.

You remember the Council--that organization which has nothing to do with the Administrative Board or the Overseers but might be stepping on your First Amendment rights, right? Freedom of speech, and thus freedom to campaign, is guaranteed for all Americans by the Constitution. Yet if Ross Perot were a first-year, he could not enter the U.C. race now even if he wanted to. He'd also have to spend his $100 million in only three days.

The U.C. rules for candidates are quite stringent. Candidates were strictly for bidden from putting up posters indicating their intentions. They were also forbidden from even discussing their candidacies with prospective voters until yesterday. Candidates must single-handedly gain enough support to win office--in four days.

According to Jennifer W. Grove '94, a co-chair of the U.C.'s Residential Committee, the Council kept the campaign period short to promote fairness. They apparently feared that not all students would be financially equipped to put up posters over a period of several weeks. Peter K. Lee '94, secretary of the council, also claimed the purpose of "evening things out."

But it seems the Council's real purpose is to cull out a few supremely organized, likeable and not necessarily wealthy individuals for its membership. However, other candidates who believe they can offer the Council qualities other than management skills and popularity--such as diverse backgrounds and pertinent coursework--would undoubtedly be slighted.

Now, there is only room on the Council for ambitious opportunists with experience in spreading around their names. The current campaign process seems to guarantee that only these people will be elected. Grove agreed that "most people vote based on who they know," calling this a "fact of undergraduate politics."

On Wednesday, students will rank five candidates from the field on the ballot. It is likely that a student will not know five candidates personally, and end up voting for at least one on the basis of name recognition. If simple name recognition could gain even the lowest of the five votes on the majority of ballots for a candidate, his or her election would be almost inevitable. Thus, a voter could unknowingly undermine his or her own candidate's chances by filling in all the blanks on the ballot.

Grove also admitted that few first-years voted in last year's election, even though they were held in the Union. In fact, council member even called out to students in an effort to lure them to the voting tables. If so few voters came out after three days of recruitment in a location frequented by all first-year students, the U.C. cannot call itself a truly representative body.

Grove was optimistic about increasing turnout, saying the candidates "will be having their friends get out" for this year's voting. If the goal of the Council is to increase its representation of students, aiming at the candidates' friends for votes is definitely not the answer.

The Council is supposedly trying to avoid an exclusive membership by, as Grove said, "encouraging posters and position papers to be given out by candidates" in an effort to circumvent the problems of an uninformed electorate and the resulting popularity contest. However, this statement, condoning a large, albeit brief, print campaign, offers a contrast to Groves' earlier fear of overspending candidates.

Just as the candidates have a right to campaign, the voters have the right to make an informed choice. It wouldn't cost the U.C. any time, money or prestige to sanction campaigning for a few weeks before its elections.

Perhaps the Council doesn't have confidence in its future members to let them engage in the volatile business of campaigning. Or perhaps they fear their current positions, gained in these same sham elections, might be torn from them by candidates more suited to a longer, more comprehensive campaign.

The problem is that such a brief and illpublicized campaign is no campaign at all. With so much stock put in name recognition and so little time given to increase it by campaigning, results would probably be comparable if the election were held today.

The Council, with an open but keenly observed campaign, could give our new politicos a real dose of useful experience.