You can tell it’s spring on campus. Everyone is lying outside on the lawns, girls are wearing obscenely small amounts of clothing and you can’t make it from your house to class without being assaulted by someone with a clipboard.
Luckily, we all survived ASUO election season again. The minute the first puffy paint sign showed up, I sighed with a feeling of, “Here we go again.” My friends and I used many tactics to avoid the student government street assaults. The easiest option was just to avoid the sidewalks near the EMU Amphitheater. This route usually boiled down simply to swinging wide and cutting across the Collier House lawn. If you were feeling bold enough to stick to the main route, you would ultimately be accosted by someone with a flier about his or her best friend, listing the reasons why the person is such a wonderful candidate. You could take the flier, read it, realize that it has absolutely nothing to say, and then put it in the garbage. Or you could have taken the paper-saving route and rejected the flier. However, this method of avoidance required saying something like, “No thanks. I’ve already voted.”
It’s hard to be polite to people who ask you the same question three times in one day. I said “no” on my way to creative writing. Did you really think I would have changed my mind after accounting? But you can’t be too hard on the ASUO candidates. I mean, they are only “the voice” of students. They’re astounded that voter turnout was low, when most students are astounded at the fact that during all the years they’ve been at the University, they’ve never seen an ASUO Executive who has really lived up to his or her campaign platform.
But now that the elections are over, a new evil is rising on campus. The off-campus political groups are coming in with their clipboards, taking advantage of pale students trying to enjoy the sun. This past Monday, I sat outside, reading a book on a bench by the EMU East Lawn. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the relaxing spot I had hoped for. I had a few close encounters with a Frisbee, which were followed by the clipboard man. He didn’t have to talk for long before I explained to him I wasn’t registered to vote in Oregon, a comment that stopped him in his tracks. Of course, now I was distracted from my reading, so I watched him walk around gathering signatures from sunbathers, who couldn’t have listened to him talk about the petition for more than a minute before signing. It’s a “pity signature,” really. Sometimes you can’t help but feel bad for the person who is willing to walk up to everyone and ask the same question over and over.
After watching him walk around, I did feel bad about how short I was with him. However, my feelings changed after he approached me three more times that same day. By the last time, I was so annoyed that I was ready to start my own petition asking for a dead zone where I could sit on campus and not be bothered.
I shifted to the tables outside the Fishbowl. Here I witnessed something extremely hilarious: The collision of two clipboard carriers. While I watched a woman trying to convince a student to sign her petition, the previous clipboard man walked up, explaining his petition to the two of them. The first one piped up saying, “Hey, I’m trying to get him to sign my petition here!” The second one apologized and walked away rather dejectedly to the next table. Apparently the clipboard carriers find each other just as annoying as students find them. Who knew?
So how do you effectively combat the clipboard carriers? Well, the best tactic is to come up with a good brushoff. The standard, “I’m not registered to vote in Oregon,” may work best, but don’t be afraid to have fun with it. Once, when an advocate held up a clipboard to a student saying “Save the whales?,” the student replied with, “Sorry, I’ve already eaten lunch.” Needless to say, this comment threw the clipboard carrier off so much that he didn’t even have an argument to the student’s apathy.
If you take the high road and listen to what they have to say, I suggest you really listen. I have had some very interesting conversations with clipboard carriers before, which made me really think about certain issues, although their arguments still didn’t convince me to sign. The point is, don’t be bullied into signing something because it’s easier than talking. If you don’t have the time to talk, then don’t sign something you know little about.
As annoying as the evil clipboard carriers are, just remember they wouldn’t be out annoying you on the bench if the sun weren’t shining. And that alone is enough to overshadow their pestering.