Jumping the Gun

For outsiders, it may seem premature, but for council insiders and observers, it comes as no surprise that candidates are coming out of the woodwork.

They may not be postering the Yard or soliciting votes door-to-door yet, but a great deal of maneuvering is happening behind closed doors, in committee meetings and private conversations with other council members.

"Everyone has to publicly pretend that you don't start running until November, but everyone's positioning themselves," says Beth A. Stewart '00, the council's former president.

Ideally, potential candidates would wait politely for their opponents to ready their platforms before launching into their own campaigns. But--as those have who have been there before say--the reality is that candidates who want a serious shot at the presidency must already have a core constituency in place when the gun goes off in mid-November.

"You need a stock of, say, 20 people who would go to bat for you, so that you're not the only person who shows up to poster in the Yard," Stewart says.

And in order to attract potential campaign workers from the council, a candidate has to look like a winner. So the jockeying for influence begins even before the first council meeting of the year.

"[You have to] institutionalize yourself as a figure of authority," says current council president Noah Z. Seton '00. "That type of posturing begins very early on."