Dems Endorse Flores for UC

The first official day of campaigning for the Undergraduate Council presidency ended with a big endorsement for candidate Andrea R. Flores ’10 and her vice-presidential running mate Kia J. McLeod ’10 last night.

The Harvard College Democrats voted to throw the weight of their organization behind the candidacy of Flores—herself a former member of the Dems—choosing to support her over the four other candidates vying for the UC’s top spot.

The Dems have supported the winning UC candidate three years in a row, and, in the aftermath of their endorsement meeting, have traditionally lent manpower and organizational expertise to their chosen ticket. According to Dems president Eva Z. Lam ’10, there was no reason to believe that the club would not follow that precedent.

“There is a tremendous potential for the Dems to be involved [in the campaign],” she said.

Lam said she would be talking with the Flores-McLeod campaign about how the Dems could best aid the ticket.

The very size of the Dems—the club boasts around 1000 undergraduates on its e-mail list—can make the organization’s endorsement decisive in elections where voter totals top out below 4,000. Last year’s election drew only 2,181 votes.

Flores’ work as the chair of the UC’s Finance Committee contributed to the Dems’ preference for her ticket, Lam said yesterday. The Dems president credited Flores’ leadership with allowing the UC to achieve a budget surplus last year.

The fact that Flores—a UC veteran who has been on the Council since her freshman year—used to be a member of the Dems also helped, Lam said. The partisan contrast was particularly stark at one point last night when Benjamin P. Schwartz ’10 mentioned his work for the Mitt Romney campaign.

“I can’t imagine that it won him any votes,” Lam said of the Romney reference.

All five UC presidential candidates attended yesterday’s endorsement event, participating in a panel discussion along with four vice-presidential candidates—Alexandra A. Petri ’10, the running mate of Roger G. Waite ’10 was absent.

During the event, each ticket was given three minutes to introduce their campaign before fielding questions from Lam and the audience.

Throughout the evening, Schwartz, who has served terms on both the UC and the College Events Board, cited his seasoning, saying that his was the “only ticket that has advocacy experience,” and pointing to his prior dealings with College administrators.

Charles T. James ’09-’10, a presidential candidate with no UC experience, took a different tack, emphasizing prioritization of “student solutions” over negotiations with administrators.

Two tickets were a source of laughter throughout the meeting.

Waite presented two main campaign planks—the UC’s replacement with “a Hapsburg prince or some other member of the house of Hapsburg,” and the use of students’ termbill fees, paid at the beginning of each year, to purchase arable land.

For his part, Michael C. Koenigs ’09 argued that small rodents and ants should be allowed in dorms.

“My mom hated my damn ant farm and she let 800 ants starve to death,” he said.