As Undergraduate Council Chair Evan B. Rauch '91-'92 tells it, he and Vice Chair Joel D. Hornstein '91-'92 first met in Rauch's room in Canaday in October, 1988--within a month of arriving at Harvard.

Rauch had just been elected to the Undergraduate Council as a representative of the Canaday/Union district, and Hornstein was a first-year representative from the Southwest Yard.

Despite his inexperience, Hornstein was campaigning to be secretary of the council, so he was stumping across campus, individually lobbying the body's newly elected members.

Rauch remembers that he did eventually vote for Hornstein at the officer elections that Sunday--more out of a sense of solidarity than anything else. The two had just been named among the four "progressive" first-year representatives endorsed by the Perspective--and Rauch felt a form of kinship with the fellow liberal.

That was two years and a week ago.

Now Rauch and Hornstein occupy the two top spots on Harvard's Undergraduate Council--but it's Rauch who is number one and Hornstein who is number two.

Last Sunday, Rauch won election as the body's chair, beating Hornstein and five other candidates. Hornstein settled for the vice chair, claiming that he had been supporting Rauch from the beginning and had only run for the position to prevent a worse candidate from winning.

Over the last two years, Rauch has served on the council's academics committee and on the services committee. By the middle of his second semester, he had earned a spot on the council's executive board by winning election as the council's secretary.

Hornstein remembers Rauch's campaign speech for that post as one that contrasted sharply with the presentations of the two candidates he defeated: Andy F. Chao '92 and Hornstein himself.

As Hornstein tells it, he and Chao approached the podium in jackets and ties, and gave serious speeches detailing how they wanted to energize the council from the secretary's seat.

But Rauch, wearing a sweater and jeans, gave a speech that made fun of the council's seriousness. This would be the beginning of Rauch's reputation for dry, witty speeches given in a monotone--speeches that would lighten the mood of many meetings and earn him council goodwill.

Rauch began his campaign speech for chair last week with the claim: "I assumed the position of U.C. secretary on March 12, 1989. Since then, the two Germanys have united, Nelson Mandela has been freed, Earth Day has made people everywhere more conscious of their environment and the butterfly of democracy has begun to emerge from the cocoon of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. I take no responsibility for the Persian Gulf crisis."

When he gave up his first council title last Sunday, Rauch had been the longest serving secretary in the council's eight-year history--a stint which allowed him to watch the inner workings of two council administrations and compile inside knowledge of council's affairs as perhaps no previous council chair candidate ever had.

So when election time rolled around last week, Rauch ran a very organized, mainstream campaign, taking informed stands on most of the council's major issues. Council insiders speculate that he was able to pick up a lot of support from incumbents who knew of his work on the council and new candidates who were impressed by his clear knowledge of the council's inner workings and its history.

According to unsuccessful council chair candidate Randal S. Jeffrey '91, Rauch won that night "because he was secretary for a year and a half and was very competent at that job plus also he was a moderate candidate as opposed to either Joel [Hornstein] or myself."