If the ASUO Executive election result is any indication, money may not necessarily equal power.
Despite a highly visible campaign including posters, volunteers with fliers, a Web page and a giant balloon rainbow hung over 13th Avenue, candidates C.J. Gabbe and Peter Larson were unable to grasp hold of the presidency this year after winning the primary election.
Gabbe and Larson spent roughly $1,500 of the $2,136 they raised through donations; Jay Breslow and Holly Magner spent only $530. Large amounts of money are not entirely unique to this year’s campaign, however; years past have seen candidates with similar spending habits, ASUO Elections Coordinator Ken Best said.
“There is no cap on how much you can spend,” he said. “The only money value we say is that you can’t get more than $500 from one source.”
The issue of campaign spending came to light at the beginning of the election when primary presidential candidates Autumn De Poe and Caitlin Upshaw pledged to spend no more than $20 on their campaign. In the end, the two candidates spent only an estimated $5.02 on their campaign.
“A student who has a thousand dollars to spend on a campaign probably isn’t in financial need,” De Poe said. “I don’t feel they could possibly represent me as a student who has to struggle to pay rent.”
Breslow and Magner said that while they spent a lot of money on their campaign, they kept their posters and fliers from becoming excessive.
“I talked to a lot of people who said they didn’t want to be harassed,” Magner said. “We didn’t over-campaign.”
Breslow agreed.
“We spent a lot … but it takes integrity, honesty and a good campaign,” he said. Larson would not comment whether he thought he and Gabbe’s campaign spending backfired on them. However, in an earlier interview with the Emerald, he defended the amount of money he and Gabbe spent and said it was done according to realistic standards. Talking to every person on the street was simply too time-consuming, he said; placing visible materials on campus was the next best thing.
“We wanted to reach out to as many voters as we possibly could,” Larson said.