Editor:
You’re right. We don’t “need our student fees being used to buy pancakes and bagels to ‘get the word out’ about a party’s platform.” (“Don’t Show the Money”, Feb. 9, 2005)
That’s because no part of the student fee is used for any candidate’s campaign activity- as is the whole point of your editorial, all this money must be raised by the candidates themselves.
But perhaps you’re wrong. As you point out, elections are often prohibitively expensive. Part of this is the result of a financial arms-race between the parties, but much of the expense is born of the necessary difficulties of trying to campaign to 29,000 far-dispersed students.
These difficulties won’t go away by simply cutting campaign timeframes or spending limits. Indeed, this would make it even harder to increase student involvement in elections.
The solution, perhaps, could be the one offered by the national political reformers you mention: public financing.
Instead of magically believing that politics can exist without money, lets try to equalize access to that money. Just as in the US Presidential race, let’s give each candidate for the final election equal funds, and forbid raising or spending beyond this public-offered, equally dispersed money.
Perhaps then even the noble yet cash-strapped Chrony writers could mount a succesful ASUU political campaign.
But then again, perhaps not.
-Travis CurritSophomore, [email protected]
p.s. A minor quibble: There are 67 offices up for election: President, Vice-President, Senior Class, and the 64 Senate and assembly seats, not 65 as written.