Last night, the 10 ASUO Executive candidates participated in the Executive Debate, marking the last time that the different campaigns will publicly argue their ideas in front of the student body during an ASUO-sanctioned event. The night was full of questions on topics ranging from the proposed campus smoking ban to diversity among the student body. However, as has been the theme for the entire election season, one issue commanded the most attention: Campaign spending caps.
Our own executive candidates, Nick and Lidi, reminded everyone that True Blue is the only major campaign in the ASUO Elections this year to adopt any kind of spending cap - $2009 for all 21 candidates, or less than $100 per candidate. When the topic was brought up by the debate moderators, Nick stated that our spending cap comes down to “something called self-restraint” and implored the other candidates to “hold [themselves] to a higher standard than we hold others”. The ASUO Executive is going to be responsible for managing an $11 million budget during some of the worst economic conditions to ever face students and the University as a whole – if candidates can’t effectively get their message out to voters with a tight campaign budget, how do we know that they’ll responsibly handle the dire financial situation facing the University of Oregon next year?
The other candidates present at the debates gave several different explanations for their refusal to cap their campaign spending. Michelle Haley of the Oregon Action Team stated that her campaign knew that they would be spending more than the $1500 limit proposed by the ASUO, and “didn’t want to lie to the Elections Board”. The OAT had previously claimed to the Oregon Daily Emerald that it intended to set a higher voluntary spending cap, but have failed to do so. Furthermore, though the debate moderators said that campaign finance was the most prevalent topic brought up by voters, the campaign manager for the Oregon Action Team said to the Daily Emerald this week that the amount of money raised and spent by campaign isn’t important to students.
Emma and Getachew, running without a slate of candidates, said that they would initially intended to adopt a spending cap, but felt that it would put them at a disadvantage if the other campaigns refused to adhere to one. The Students First candidates, Carina Miller and Nick Gower, said that they also didn’t support a spending cap. Through the first four days of campaigning, their slate had already spent almost $4500 on campaign materials – over twice the amount that True Blue has pledged to spend for the entire election. The independent dark horse candidates Ryan and Ian decided to spend no money on campaigning this year, relying instead of word-of-mouth to get their message out.
Deciding to cap our spending hasn’t always been an easy choice for the members of True Blue. We have seen that other candidates have been able to purchase significantly more t-shirts, buy online advertising and generally benefit from the kind of exposure that money can buy. But we’ve been focusing on a far more powerful form of outreach: Face-to-face conversations.
We don’t believe that campaigning should be just a flyer or a t-shirt, but also a conversation. Handing someone a piece of paper telling them to vote isn’t the same thing as taking the time to explain to them WHY voting is important. It’s this quality that sets True Blue apart from the other campaigns, and makes us even more passionate about improving student government. We’ve been working exhaustively this week to have face-to-face interactions with students because we know that this is the most powerful way to get people involved in student government. It’s a philosophy we’ll take with us into the ASUO.
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