Candidates at the Plaza of the Americas
Organizers prepare for "Senate in the City" event
It was pretty darned cold yesterday when I got to the Plaza of the Americas, but it warmed up a little bit. The students who stopped by my table were interested in the local issues and wanted to make a responsible choice. I felt like I was very well received. I was asked if I expected students to turn out in large numbers, and I told him that I was counting on a larger turnout from everyone. City elections are notorious for their 9-12% voter turnouts.
Student Senate candidates were there as well, and their tables got a lot of traffic. A WUFT-FM reporter asked me if I had any advice for Senate candidates. I shared my story of how I was in student government in 1977. It was where I first learned how powerful it felt to spend other people’s money. We had begun our political tenures being really cheap, and making every student club and activity justify every expense. Toward the end of the year, we had so much money left over that we started throwing it around on frivolous things, like keg parties and wine and cheese events. We even brought in Steve Martin and charged only 50 cents admission to make sure we lost money. I guess you could say we had subsidized stand-up comedy that year. In the final analysis, I wanted to remind them that those student activity fees are the taxes students pay to the student government, and that their clubs deserve to be funded.
It was a lot of fun, and I gave away a lot of window clings!
