The announcement of Associated Student Government election results tonight will be a moment of truth for more than just those whose names appear on the ballot.
From chalking campus sidewalks late at night to spending hours compiling lists of e-mail addresses and managing Web sites, friends and other supporters to help spread candidate’s names, messages and platform to the student body.
Members of both presidential campaign staffs this year said they have been involved since the candidates first considered running during Winter Quarter. Since the beginning of the official campaign period, the staffs have poured hours each day into publicizing their candidates.
Maya Bhardwaj is presidential candidate Alessio Manti’s campaign manager. She was responsible for organizing campaign initiatives, coordinating volunteers and filling in where needed. Bhardwaj said she got involved because she has been friends with vice presidential candidate Adam Thompson-Harvey “for a while.”
“There’s a lot of interest in the election campaign, but the hardest thing is getting people to vote,” the Weinberg sophomore said.
Another member of Manti’s staff, Ben Branfman, said he agreed to work on the campaign because he “knew personally that (Manti) is very smart and driven.”
The Weinberg freshman said he has sometimes devoted entire days to working on the campaign, from compiling lists of e-mail addresses of supporters, to creating stencils for chalking, to looking over flyers and shooting promotional videos.
As election day got closer, both campaigns said they intensified their efforts considerably.
Claire Lew’s presidential campaign has an “action director” and a “strategy director.” Lew’s action director is Dan Weiss, who said he implements the strategies Lew, her running mate Hiro Kawashima and other core members of the campaign prepare in campaign meetings. Weiss met Lew this year while serving on the ASG Public Relations Committee and worked with her since “several weeks before Spring Break,” working out details of the campaign, he said.
“It is really unbelievable,” the Weinberg freshman said. “People talk about how big of a commitment (the campaign) is but you don’t realize it until you do it.”
Kate McGarrahan, Lew’s ground director, said during the last few days of campaigning she had meetings until around 2 a.m. Then, the Weinberg sophomore said she woke up early to work on chalking and later went door-to-door until 8 p.m. For the final day of campaigning, McGarrahan, who manages the volunteer database for Lew and Kawashima’s campaign, said she aims to “mobilize every member of the campaign.”
“We are hoping to have as many bodies in as many places as possible,” she said. “We will be trying to be talking up voting all over campus, especially on election day.”
Both campaigns have had dozens of students volunteer in various capacities, but campaign leaders said most volunteers have some personal connection to the candidates or other campaign members and share the candidates’ commitment to running a clean campaign.
“There is a level of trust we have, trust in the people we are working with. It is very rare that someone goes door-to-door without someone tied to the core campaign group,” Weiss said. “For chalking and flyering, we make it as easy for people to find out about rules.”
Facebook and e-mail have allowed Bhardwaj to communicate campaigning plans and strategies, as well as reminders about campaign rules to all of the volunteers, she said.Ultimately, campaign members said it is a commitment to NU and a belief in the ability of their respective candidates to accomplish important things in office that had kept them involved over the last several weeks.
“(Campaigning) is very tiring, very difficult, but it is good to be involved in something bigger than yourself,” Weiss said. “At the end of the day, we are doing this for Northwestern.”[email protected]
