Through the Mire

It is no secret that political campaigns often become dirty. Character attacks, fraudulent spending and funding, Watergate, dead men voting, and hanging chads—all these issues and many more have marred the public’s faith in the election process. Harvard is not Washington. Yet, those watching the Undergraduate Council (UC) Presidential Campaign unfold over the last few weeks might never have guessed they were on a college campus and not in a swing state. This year’s campaign degenerated from a discussion on student issues into a spectacle that, if anything, left students more jaded than they already were by UC politics.

The tenor of this year’s campaign was overwhelmingly negative. Allegations that the John F. Voith ’07-Tara Gadgil ’07campaign registered HaddockRiley.com—the surnames of their biggest rivals, John S. Haddock ’07 and Annie R. Riley ’07—attempted to bribe the Magnus Grimeland ’07-Tom D. Hadfield ’08 campaign to drop out of the race, and made misleading and conflicting statements to the Harvard Republican Club and the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transsexual Student Alliance led us to rescind our endorsement of their candidacy. At the same time, countless e-mail lists were filled with often heated discussions of the allegations—discussions that reflected the unfortunate tone of campus discourse.

But the Voith-Gadgil campaign was not the only source of negativity. The overwhelmingly unenthusiastic “they won’t get stuff done” message of the Grimeland-Hadfield campaign combined with two new web blogs to color this year’s campaign. Every comment was subject to overwhelming public scrutiny from multiple sources, often tinged with disapproval. As a result, this year’s campaign put an even higher premium on positive publicity. In this effort, Haddock-Riley succeeded above the other two campaigns—though we are still unclear as to the specifics of their platform or future proposals for the council—and their emphasis on the strengths of their ticket instead of the faults of others likely contributed to their win.

Despite the tenor of the UC campaign, more students got involved than probably ever before, with election turnout the second highest of all time. The seriousness of this involvement is debatable, however, as even facebook groups endorsed candidates. The “Yankee Empire,” for instance, supported Voith-Gadgil, who they wrote promised “a sincere effort to eliminate the Red-Sox-normative ethos of the campus, and improve the overall quality of life for Bronx Bomber fans.” (Facebook group “Red Sox Nation” endorsed Haddock-Riley.) Meanwhile, the “Students for the California Relocation of Harvard University” analyzed the candidates concluding, “John Haddock has more boldly defended our common goal, Magnus has received support from most of our execs, but John Voith is the candidate most familiar to California.” As Harvard is clearly not relocating to California any time soon, and neither Red Sox nor Yankee fans will ever be eliminated from the planet, the facebook group endorsements were symptomatic of a climate in which the UC campaign became a spectacle and the real issues were obscured.

Another feature of the election was the vote-selling service created by Alexsei Boiko ’06. While the service eventually folded without any votes being sold, the service was a sad complement to the election. Thirty-four students offered to sell their votes for prices as low as $1, an indication of the cynical nature with which students viewed the election in the first place.

The vote-selling service, facebook group endorsements, and many allegations that accompanied this year’s UC presidential campaign underscore the spectacle of the elections and the jaded attitude with which students view the UC. With their victory out of the mire, it is Haddock-Riley’s prerogative to overcome the negative tenor of the campus and reengage the student body with the UC. Otherwise, the tone of the election will continue to resonate for a long time.