"Dave, I guess, is not without problems," said new council member Clay West '98, "but he just seemed to have the best chance of being a leader we could have confidence in."

Hanselman himself attributes his success to a careful and committed campaign.

Even though he didn't write his speech until Sunday afternoon, Hanselman said he chose his campaign theme long before his competitors.

He played on his self-described attributes--an earnest demeanor and a knack for organization--to embark on an orchestrated face-to-face campaign.

Hanselman charted whom he saw and what they said on an intricately coded list.

Despite his machinations, however, Hanselman conceded that the election rested largely on the image problems of his opponents.

"I only really had one competitor," Hanselman said. "And if Josh Liston had won, whether he ever did anything wrong or not, the council would have lost credibility with students and administrators. It would look like we had a crook in office."

But Liston warned against sacrificing image to substance.

"My opponents were more concerned with how they looked than who they were and what they would do," Liston said yesterday. "And if that is the case with this year's leadership we'll have problems.