Dopers… Based on my absolute desire to serve my fellow law students (sarcasm), I am going to make a run for 1L Representative. Essentially at our school, the SBA is simply a large social club, and the race has already pretty much devolved into a popularity contest. I expected to run unopposed but right before the filing deadline, 2 others entered the race. The one I have never heard of and believe is a non-entity. The other is an odd man to say the least, and I would not consider him to be the strongest opponent. I still however fear losing, so I am asking for Doper suggestions as to small election strategy and tactics. I am thinking of getting buttons from here . I would like to keep costs to a few $100 at most. On another note, if anyone has any interesting SBA stories to tell, please do.
You’re only running for 1L rep. That means it’s basically your 1L section voting for you right?
My advice is twofold: (1) press the flesh. Talk to every single person in your section. If you have people from other sections voting for/against you as well - talk to as many of them as possible. Step (2) ASK for their vote. Don’t be shy about it. Say “I’m running. Will you vote for me?”
That’s about it. I will say that having all your friends (what? you do have law school friends right?) show up with T-shirts with pictures of your face on the front and “Vote Yogurt - 1L REP!!!” on the back can go a long way. At least it proves you have enough friends that other people should vote for you (in what is, as you correctly identified, basically a popularity contest).
How long do you really have to run? Here SBA elections were pretty low-key; ‘campaigning,’ as near as I can tell, amounted in substance to people asking for the signatures they needed to get on the ballot, and then a brief ‘what I will do if elected’ talk in our section immediately before the vote.
I won SBA rep on a platform of “I have a Viagra pen. Want to use it to sign my petition?”
Mostly, though, I won by declaring early. A lot of law students - a LOT - are political types who, paradoxically, want to keep all their options open and so won’t run if you’re friendly with them and you declare early.
Other than that, just get your name out, go to a few social events, and smile a lot. It’s really very intuitive.
Yep, just my section, approx. 80 people.
September 25th is the election day, and hence my 2nd predicament. When to actually start seriously campaigning. If I do order buttons, t-shirts etc, I’m debating when to distribute them. I want to be the definite front runner, but at the same time I don’t want to exhaust my resources too early.
Insofar as my speech is concerned, I was going to go 85% humor, 15% serious topics, because in reality our organizations most important functions are planning homecoming, happy hours, the annual football game, happy hours, study sessions and did I mention happy hours? (I do more social drinking now than I did in undergrad I think)
Anyone have any other suggestions?