By Samuel McKewon
Senior editor
Josh Hesse and his grand idea of
fish enters the room at the first
ASUN electoral commission meet
ing.
It will be his last.
Hesseifeone of four presidential
candidates90|MMttkJ§mpower
president Hea
dent John Conle^j
dent Joel Schafer.^|hey 're
to learn of any fines Hagy havelevied
against them, based ohianfair
paign tactics.
Fishpond is Hesse’s pa
he has not filed officially,]
alone, with a platform
public in a Daily Nebp^i^lpf to
the editor and then fallowed through
with when he established the party as
an actual idea. Hesse’s sole mandate
to that point had been to put fish -
goldfish, catfish, sucker fish, what
ever - in the Broyhill fountain.
It is a idea complicated by a few
issues. One, as Conley brings up in
previous interviews, fountain water
is chlorinated and therefore will kill
anything staying in it for any length
of time. So the water will have to be
changed.
After that happens, it’s likely the
fountain will transform itself into
some sort of mossy lagoon, full of
seaweed and mosquitoes, without
constant and costly removal of water.
Anyone with a fish tank understands
the logic. Then, there has to be a
place to put the fish while the tank is
drained.
Still, Hesse forges on, spending
$1.36, he says, to spread posters all
over campus, though he believed that
someone was attempting to sabotage
the campaign by making bogus pho
tocopies, thereby putting him in vio
lation for, as he says, “improperly
placed posters.”
paidates^W^ggg
ule: “All electiol
“I just want the commission to
know I didn’t do this,” Hesse says. “I
wasn’t in violation.”
The co:
board t
Franze
Steele
sion is a five-person
students Todd
ida Miller, Clarissa
Winkle and English
;n Buhler, who were
lister the election
;s for any election
The violations are
ifferent penalties.
’Hesse’s violation, it
Lwording.
mat they
Student
ctidf
to tHI
ent Elef&ons.
ust also indicate the date
2000.
e, tlf! student govern
s left off. Conley and
iled for not having
table tents,” a
that lo'oks a tri
ged together by
r to food adver
men
Impac
A SUN oS
geometric
angle caving in.
glue, they are s
tisements at family restaurants.
Think pies.)
Mello turned
Conley in for his
table tents and
Hesse in for his
posters.
“I’m sorry,
John, because
they’re really
great-looking
tents,” Mello says.
Mello has no
such comment for
Hesse’s creation, a
8 ‘/2-by-l 1-inch
piece ol paper, which blares r ibH
POND in bold, capital letters. At the
bottom, it refers to all of those voters
who don’t want to “lick boots” to
I know we’re
M | just want the
commission to
know I didn’t do
this. I wasn’t in
violation.”
Josh Hesse
Fishpond presidential candidate
vote for Hesse.
Conley’s expenses are much
higher, because they were on a cou
ple hundred table tents. He picked
them up and was fined $20 for the
violation. He also eats the cost of the
flyers, near $100. For awhile, the
board discusses bigger fines, then
smaller fines, then no fines for
Conley, just the penalty of taking
away the incriminating table tents.
The board does not fine him for
table tents set up on East Campus
because he picked those up before
any members on the commission
could see them.
Hesse is up for the same fine. The
board discusses just what it should
do to Fishpond. Hesse has to decide
what his response will be.
The meeting already has been
contentious. Conley had turned
Mello in for illegally sending out
mass campaign mailings over list
servs in UNL’s e-mail system, one of
which turns out to be a violation of
the student code of conduct.
Then Mello, who clicks his pen
up and down at least 1,000 times dur
ing the meeting, points an accusatory
finger at Hesse.
not supposed to
bring up these
types of per
sonal matters
at an electoral
commission
meeting, but, I
don’t know, I
felt like that
Mr. Hesse was
referring to us
when he states
in his poster
when he’s talk
ing about lick
ing other people s boots, Mello said.
“It says, ‘So if you don’t lick boots,
join Fishpond ...
“Excuse me?” Hesse interrupts.
Mello: and I take personal
offense that anybody who might be
supporting me would be considered a
‘boot-licker’ in Mr. Hesse’s mind.”
Hesse fires back: “Look, I was
uui icicumg
to your (stu
dent electoral
group) when
I’m talking
about licking
boots.”
M e 1 1 o :
“Well, whose
boots are you
talking about
then?”
Hesse: “I
don’t think
The com
mission cuts him on.
“This isn’t an issue here,” Winkle
said. “This doesn’t have anything to
do what we’re doing here.”
The groups move past boot-lick
ing and toward Hesse’s fine. Two
members of the board don’t think
Hesse deserves a $20 fine because he
spent so little on the posters. The
other three, Miller, Winkle and
Franzen, vote for the fine. They take
one vote, and Hesse speaks up.
“I just want you to know that a
fine like that will force Fishpond to
drop out of the race,” says Hesse,
who only plans to spend $15 on the
campaign and somehow win.
In a second vote, they still come
up with a 3-2 count.
After the vote, Hesse seems
bewildered at the proceedings.
“Excuse me, can someone tell me
what just happened there?” he asks.
“You were fined $20,” Winkle
says, somewhat confused at Hesse’s
question.
“All right, well, I’m late for
work,” Hesse says, picking up his
bike helmet and his scarf. “You
tt
Excuse me,
can someone tell
me What just
Happened
there?”
Josh Hesse
Fishpond presidential candidate
know, I don’t think it’s fair that I
spend $ 1.36 on the ..
“Yoir dropped your scarf,” Mello
says. He hands it to Heese.
“I will appeal this decision and
unless me line is
dropped,” Hesse
says, “Fishpond is
dissolved!”
He waves his
hands in a way that
suggests some
thing dissolving,
and he walks out.
He leaves a copy
of his poster
behind. Hesse
never appeals the
decision. He never
files officially.
And, even
though he s supposed to, there s no
real way to force Hesse to pay the
fine because he never left an elec
toral deposit to use for fines. So
Fishpond gets the last laugh. Sort of.
His run at the top seat in student
government ends before it begins.
Conley says he feels bad. Sort of.
“I think Josh figured a lot of peo
ple would see Fishpond and say,
‘Hey, here’s this guy who wants to
put fish in the fountain. It’s pretty
cool.’ But that never happened to us,”
Xonley said.jfc
“But it’s not like either of us were
trying to be in violation of the rules.
It was a mistake. I’m not sure why we
should be fined for it. Rules are rules,
I guess.”
One wonders. In the ASUN
room, on the west wall, is the student
government election sign-up sheet. It
says ASUN Spring Elections in black
marker on orange construction paper.
No date.
No “student government” tag.
There it sits, posted on the wall,
in violation of its own rule.
Impact takes relaxed approach to campaign
IMPACT from page 1
work on banners, a few more to make
smaller signs. All of the tools are there:
scissors, glues, markers, paper clips,
pencils.
In his own iittle way, he directs
them to their choices.
“Now you got just the basic thing
here, and if you want tomatoes or pick
les, they’re in here,” Conley says to one
supporter, who probably could’ve fig
ured it out for himself. “But anyway,
there it is.”
Bangs, a junior exercise science
major, would do no such thing. Easily
Ellis concedes that i
is chock-full of fun, but
“Be creative,” Ellis
ers. “Have fun with it.”
the quietest ot the
three executive
candidates, Bangs
is never seen yelling
across a room or
raising his voice.
When he converses
with Conley, it’s
normally in a one
on-one setting.
That doesn’t
mean Bangs hasn’t
contributed greatly,
Conley says. Bangs
knows his way
around the universi
ty system, along
with the greek sys
tem. On some of Impact’s platform
ideas, Bangs is up front gathering the
information for feasibility.
Consider one of Impact’s aborted
issues, which was to run more campus
shuttle routes on the perimeter ofUNL
to avoid costly train delays. Bangs
gathers the information and relays it
Conley: There’s not much that can be
tt
That’s Amy
right there. She’s
always the Organ
ized one.”
John Conley
Impact presidential candidate
done.
In fact, Transportation Services
had tried it before and it took longer
for shuttles to get to their destination.
Hence, the idea doesn’t take off.
Bangs’ fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, is the
location for some Impact meetings,
including the midnight rally.
As the days move on, Conley still
feels strongly about his campaign.
Mello, and a few of his statements dur
ing debates, have bothered Conley.
When Mello war ts all four of the par
ties to get together for a social night
out, Conley sees it as a chance to win
A-Team’s and Duff’s support more
than anything else.
W&en Mello offers to help Duff
presidential candidate Kidd with the
debates, Conley sees the same ulterior
motives.
And who knows how it will fall. A
Team, with its cartoonish ads in the
Daily
Nebraskan,
has people
talking.
Presidential
candidate Joel
Schafer is a
dynamic
speaker. A
pinch of
humor, a dash
of idealism -
Conley sees
these issues
becoming
more and
more preva
lent as time
moves on.
How does one indict such cam
paign advances? Conley props up A
Team and Duff as good for the campus
by pushing reform. Underneath that,
there’s a growing worry that the cam
pus could elect one of them, especially
A-Team. Conley believes in experi
ence, in a proven thing. Schafer, in the
realm of ASUN, has neither.
Heather Glenboski/DN
AMY ELLIS, Impact second vice presidential candidate, speaks in a debate while John Conley, presidential candidate,
looks on. Ellis, who made schedules and organized woik nights, was dubbed the “organized one” of the party.
“It would
take some time
for Joel to get
things done,”
Conley says.
“He has to learn
that system. And
you don’t know
how people will
react to that.”
But neither
Conley nor the
other parties
take genuine
stabs at the congenial party ot a
Team. Taking the high road of integri
ty is honorable, but very few ques
M We think people
have heard
US and like what
we have to say.
John Conley
Impact presidential candidate
tions, Conley
says, have been
raised about
whether or not A
Team could get
much done. And
if they do win, it
asserts that previ
ous involvement
doesn’t mean
much.
Conley thinks
that might appeal
to disaffected vot
era.
“Joel’s going to get people who
wouldn’t vote otherwise,” he says.
“And that’s a good thing.”
One day, Conley comes down to
the DN with a theory. He guarantees a
run-off, one party coming from the
reformer side of A-Team and Duff, the
other coming from the more estab
lished parties of Impact and Empower.
It’s still him vs. Mello. A few days
before the election, he’s changed his
mind, saying he doesn’t know what to
think of the outcome.
But he thinks he’s still in very good
shape.
“Everybody is in good spirits
here,” Conley says. “The issues are out
there. And we think people have heard
us and like what we have to say.”