Election time again
It doesn't seem like a year ago that I was campaigning alongside Rupert for Union elections. However, it has been, and that means that it's election time again, so I thought I might write a column about how Rupert managed to win the Felix Editor post, in order to try and help all you people campaigning for posts at the moment.
Firstly, I think it is important to be different from your opposition. Well, at least a bit different, you probably don't want to stand out as an extremely left wing communist party member but you shouldn't blend into the crowd. At Imperial, the easiest way to stand out is to not be a geek! Last year, Rupert clearly stood out as the least geeky of the candidates; he was a bit whiney and annoying sometimes but he wasn't a geek! Martin Smith and Darius Nibkin were, I'm sorry to say, rather geeky. This would probably have made them much better editors, but it also meant they lacked the social skills necessary to win votes. Simon Clark wasn't actually at all geeky, he was well known and liked going out to all-night hard house clubs; unfortunately, he did computing and this carries a stigma of geekiness which was easy to exploit! So tip one is: Don't do a geeky course. If you harbour dreams of greatness and do either computing/maths or possibly physics, quickly transfer or give up!
Secondly, make your campaign engaging. We ran our campaign around the characters Rupert the Bear and Felix the Cat. Yes, it's obvious - but it sticks in people's minds and that is what's important! We also tried every possible way to get Rupert's name in people's minds. We had T-shirts printed, loads of posters, and covered the whole campus with them. Rupert spent most lunch breaks and every free afternoon going round putting up posters and replacing the ones that had been removed by other people (oh yes, if you want to win you probably need to fight dirty!). On the night before voting ended, Rupert and a few other guys went and wrote his slogans all over the campus in chalk. Most of them were removed, and we had an interesting interview with Mustafa Arif about damaging college property and were fined thirty pounds. It was probably worth it. Our greatest idea was getting a friend to make a full size Rupert the Bear outfit and dressing Rupert up in it and sending him out campaigning. Also, sometimes other people would wear the outfit and campaign on his behalf and that brings me on to point three: have a big support team.
Point four is about hustings and in particular the Wye campus. We won a great deal of votes at Wye because we actually talked to them. Wye always feel very ignored and Rupert promised to do something about this; I doubt he has done anything but politics is all about empty promises. Wye used to be full of agricultural and equine students and we spent the night being completely out drunk by the Wye rugby team. Nowadays, Wye have stopped the agricultural and equine courses so there will be more and more business students; what you need to promise them I don't know but it probably won't be the new tractor and six sheep we promised them last year! Hustings at South Kensington probably aren't that important, as hardly anyone turns up except for Union hacks, and frankly they all have friends running who they will vote for. Wye and the medic campus are more important; these people don't know any of the candidates so it's easier to win them over.
My final point is that it isn't important to know anything about the job you are campaigning for. Rupert knew nothing about being Felix Editor; all the other three candidates did! Now, whether he has done a good job or not is up to the voters to decide but as candidates you can take heart in the fact he was the rank outsider and yet managed to win with about 50% percent of the vote. A true victory of style over substance.
