page 4
daily ncbraskan
friday, march 17, 1978
ASUN results lose student interest with slow return
Thirty-five students will have a
nice surprise waiting for them when
they return from spring break. By
that time, they officially should
know if they have been elected to
the 1978-79 ASUN senate.
We hope they're not holding their
breaths, because we'd hate to see
them suffocate.
The ASUN Electoral Commission
announced early Thursday night that
they would not have election results
tallied until sometime late Thursday
night. By that time, it was too late
for the Daily Nebraskan deadline.
Since the newspaper probably is
the most comprehensive method for
informing students, those who are
anxious to learn, of election results
will have to wait until they return
from a nine-day spring vacation.
Besides, waiting to announce elec
tion results until some time last night
or today will miss a lot of students
who leave early for vacation. . . not
to mention holding up the plans of
senatorial candidates whose next
move depends on election results.
We suppose this is not of too
much importance to the majority of
students, since about only 14 per
cent of the student body voted in
Wednesday's election. But to those
who do care, and to us, whose job
is to inform our readers of the news
as soon as possible if not sooner
this is intolerable.
Without knowing who his new
senate is, we wonder how president
elect Ken Marienau will be able to
get any kind of senate groundwork
started until the end of the month.
A two-week delay could hamper a
government with goals as ambitious
as those of Marienau.
A student government that cannot
even tell its constituents who their
new representatives are until a day
and a half after the election needs
some serious examination. We realize
that hand-counting ballots is a ted
ious, time consuming job, but surely
some kind of more efficient system
can be set up.
Perhaps this would be a good pro
ject for Marienau's new senate to
tackle. It looks like this lack of ex
pediency in announcing election
results may hinder the senate in get
ting off to a good start. We certain
ly hope not.
Marienau has said that he wants
to expand student services. We
suggest that the ASUN president
elect start with his own home terri
tory, and do something to improve
the present electoral process in time
for next year's election.
Joke parties tickle fancy in otherwise boring campaigns
Now that the voting is over, I'll get
around to writing my ASUN election
analysis. (We all have these off weeks,
you know.)
I voted a straight ARF ticket Wednes
day. "Arf" is what my dog says when he
wants to go outside. I always listen to him,
so the vote came naturally.
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3
I was a bit disappointed with this year's
election. The straight candidates always are
disappointing in their annual pursuit of
the coveted law school recommendation.
But the joke parties often are the best
entertainment this side of Cinema X.
ARF (A Real Farce) and POOR (Poor
One On down the hatch for the Regents)
started the campaign well, but they rapidly
degenerated into seriousness. And, given
the skimpiest election coverage in recent
years by this newspaper, it was hard to
keep track of what any of the candidates
were doing.
Past campaigns have been more interest
ing. The Yippies (Youth International Party)
set the pattern "in 1970. They promised
draft beer in residence halls and Greek
houses and free joints to anyone who
asked. This latter promise would be made
possible by seceding from the United
States and legalizing marijuana.
To explain the absence of its presiden
tial candidate from a debate, the party
claimed that he was kidnapped by the
opposition.
The next year the Rocket Grease and
Freedom Party -an offshoot of a '50s
rock 'n' roll band, Rick and the Rockets
made the best showing of any joke party
this decade. Party candidates wore greased
back duckbill hair, distributed a coloring
book instead of a platform and campaigned
for pencil sharpeners in all classrooms.
Shaman Jack Mason in 1973 picked up
the Yippies' theme of surrealism with his
two-member Surrealist Light People's Party
(SLPP). Mason passed out autographed
bananas at rallies, led debate audiences in
chants of "Out, demons. Out!" and prom
ised that his platform would be built with
a reinforced-concrete base covering most of
the Coliseum.
"UNL was a low -budget movie inhabited
by a minority of humans, a majority of
androids and 'them'," Mason asserted.
"Them" are the movie directors who pro
gram the androids to think they are
human. Mason's main theme was to remove
androids from student government. He
also offered this solution to the coed visi
tation issue: a sheep on every dorm floor,
the SLPP campaign took a dark turn when
Mason announced that an evil force was
trying to turn his running mate Willie
Wonka into a Frito corn chip.
In 1974. an old Greasr and reedom
candidate. Ron Sindclar. ran for all three
exeuctive slots as the United for One
(UFO) party. He stressed the perennial
issue of pencil sharpeners in every class
room. As the party leader, he said he was
optimistic about ASUN; as second vice
president he said ASUN was an ego trip
for candidates; the first vice-presidential
candidate was unavailable for comment.
UFO faced competition from the CLAP
party (Celibacy, Lysterine and Anti-Permissiveness).
CLAP pledged to give each
ASUN senator (there would be fo.000 of
ballot forced the group into a serious
campaign.
Nearing election day, though, PAP
returned to its principles and "manned"
its campaign booth with a mannequin
head. The PAP standard bearer was the
university's IBM-360 computer. When the
Rag ran pictures of candidates, it included
a mug shot of the computer's control
panel.
Farlier in 1973-74, student voters
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Daily Nebraskan photo
The two-member Surrealist Light People's Party, Jack Mason and Willie Wonka
(on the right), go bananas during the 1973 ASUN election. They are one of several
joke parties in recent years that have used humorous gimmicks to illustrate the
absurdity they see in student government.
them) a gavel to hammer with anda red
and white Husker beanie, topped off by a
propeller.
Also, they would supply campus
security with half-tracks to use in enfor
cing a proposed ban on free pinball games,
which they termed "too permissive."
The 1975 ASUN race found Five parties
in the field. None of them were strictly
joke parties. The Pro-Apathy Party (PAP)
started with that intention (reiterating the
need for pencil sharpeners) but election
rules which kept the party initials off the
proved their respect for tradition by elect
ing a male as Homecoming Queen. The
sponsoring organization declared him ineli
gible, but the hairy-faced queen gained his
crown back with an appeal to ASUN Stu
dent Court.
The court got a further workout in the
spring '74 election with a PAP lawsuit
against campaign rules. After that the court
became the election centerpiece.
The joke party in 1976 was one of the
best, although it lacked the flamboyance of
Shaman Jack and his bananas.
The Stupid Americans Party (SAP)
quoted Oscar Wilde: "There is more to be
said for stupidity than people can
imagine." It claimed to have a natural
constituency because "most people associ
ated with UNL are stupid to be here."
As such, SAP promised to deal with the
administration on its own level stupidity.
SAP pledged to establish diplomatic
relations with Mongolia and install pay
toilets in each residence hall and Greek
house.
The real joke that year, though, was the
"Greek Slate." It was a secret list circu
lated at fraternities and sororities which
endorsed Greek candidates from all parties.
The slate nearly swept the election.
The leaders of the four losing parties
called the winner, Bill Mueller, imcompe
tent. He called them yahoos. The losers
immediately challenged the results in
student court. Failing at this, they
petitioned for a referendum to transfer
all powers and duties of ASUN to a group
called the Coalition for University Reform
(CUR), which the losers created after the
election.
The petition drive succeeded, but the
court declared it unconstitutional and
CUR faded away in a Fit of grumbling.
Earlier that year another homecoming
election featured both King and Queen
candidates. But Daily Nebraskan cartoon
character Ralph Crabtree won a smashing
victory with a write-in campaign for the
king spot, and a write-in from a residence
hall was voted queen after a campaign
which protested the lack of dormies on
the ballot.
The Greek Slate circulated again last
year, but failed this time. Again the main
factor in the election was Student Court
even more so this time.
Leftover election losers from the year
before filed suit to abolish the ASUN
senate on grounds that it had failed to have
a quorum at meetings for more than three
months. The court compromised and
delayed the election for a month while
ASUN corrected technical errors.
No real joke parties ran last year. The
closest thing was The High People's Coali
tionLiberated Students for Democracy
(THCLSD). The group ran a serious cam
paign, but it did pick up the call for pencil
sharpeners in each classroom.
Before turning over his seat last year,
ASUN President Mueller called the student
government "a farce." Who am 1 to argue?
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