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. [click to continue…]
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