The Seriousness of Long-Johnson

To the editors:

In a front-page article in Tuesday’s Crimson, “UC Race Opens With Media Rush,” Crimson writers reported that “the ‘Long-Johnson’ ticket… seems to be taking the race less seriously” than the other candidates. Our campaign would like to set the record straight and send a message to our opponents and the student body: this campaign is serious. While it may be true that Long-Johnson (note to Crimson editors: no quotation marks needed) has had a slow start in the campaign, let it be known that we are preparing to hit the ground running. Hard.

The quotes around “Long-Johnson” that were used in the article were a striking indication of The Crimson’s lack of respect for our ticket. Why quotes around our campaign name and not the others?

Furthermore, the article took a turn for the worse when it implied that our lack of experience on the UC was one of the reasons that we are “taking the race less seriously.” It is precisely because we are outsiders that we believe seriously that we should be elected. Looking through our platform on our website or glancing at our posters, you might notice that our rhetoric is a bit satirical of the jargon and goals of UC candidates. We take this approach because we seriously want to bring change to what students increasingly see as a self-important yet flaccid instrument.

We hope that The Crimson can come to terms with our perhaps unorthodox way of running a campaign with a little humor thrown in. As we campaign to bring change to the UC, we would appreciate more respectful coverage of our ticket and some semblance of objectivity from The Crimson.

We would also like to add that we hope the student body enjoys the campaign as much as we will.

Robert G.B. Long and David R. Johnson

Cambridge, Mass.

November 11, 2009

Robert G.B. Long ’11 and David R. Johnson ’11 ran for Undergraduate Council president and vice president respectively.

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