You almost couldn't tell them apart--at least not from the waist up.

The four candidates for the Undergraduate Council's presidency were identically attired in navy blazers, white shirts, tame ties and even tamer dark hair as they sat in a row answering questions before Sunday night's election.

"Everyone knows they look nice in a navy jacket, and everyone has one," explained former contender Sam Ferrell '95. "So we all decided to leave the Spandex at home."

And they each proclaimed kindred visions for the new council--so new that 63 of 87 members are serving their first term.

The candidates all talked emphatically of putting the "scandals" of recent councils behind them, while deferring to student preferences.

"It was hard to distinguish between their actual platforms," said new council member Eric Silberstein '98. "They said all the things you'd expect them to say and those were all the same."

So in casting their votes Sunday night, many new council members said they based their decisions more on perceptions and got reactions than on defined political positions.

New member Pathik Patel '97 said he based his presidential vote on the personal visits of each candidates to Patel's room and the impressions he had of some candidates from last year.

"The speeches they made [Sunday] night didn't really help me distinguish between them," he said. "I felt like I understood them pretty well before I got there. And I wasn't really that excited about any of them."

New council member Manisha Bharti '98 lamented the fact that she wasn't able to meet each candidate personally.

"It was really unfortunate because I think meeting the two I did really made a difference in how I viewed them," she said.

"I'm just a naive freshman," Bharti added, "and I've never had to vote for someone I didn't know really well before."

In fact, every new council member interviewed last night said they based their votes on image.

According to many new members, Ferrell was too bitter, Jason E. Schmitt '98 was too green and too ambitious and former vice president Joshua D. Liston '95 was too controversial.

And all new members who were interviewed--about 20--said they were not surprised by the outcome of the race.

Only former vice chair--and new president--David L. Hanselman '94-'95 came off relatively clean, they said, despite allusions Sunday to insensitivity towards women on the council in the spring of 1993.

"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.