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Show Voters Bally Exciting Comeback ' : " ' L ASUU Campaign: Price's Narrow! iip By SANDY GILMOUR There was something more than the usual sort of politics which won the election for Giff Price and some of the other ASUU hopefuls Friday. THERE WERE, of course, the traditional student politics in which candidates gather various fraternity and sorority soror-ity bloc votes, appeal to their old high school friends (who have followed the candidate for three or four years now), the suddenly renewed friendships, friend-ships, smiles, coats and ties, speeches before the Greek houses, dormitories, the powerful pow-erful LDS Institute groups (powerful by virtue of their size), the letters to the editor in this paper. That "something" In this campaign wasn't much more, but it was enough to muster a 100 vote lead for Price in the finals, and while 100 votes is close, it's enough. In the primary elections "straw vote" for the presidency, presi-dency, Cannon led his opponent oppon-ent by more than 300 votes (there seems to be no particularly part-icularly logical reason to have run off the two in the primaries, pri-maries, since they were the only two running). YET WHEN the final vote ' was tallied Friday. Price led by 100 votes, and the election committee reported that there had been 400 more students who voted in the finals than in the primaries. On the face, it appears those 400 students who suddenly sud-denly showed up for the finals fi-nals showed up to knock down Cannon. BUT BELOW the surface, there are some other possibilities possib-ilities which deserve comment, com-ment, and could show that this year's elections marks a turning point in interest in student government here, as well as a growing understanding understand-ing of modern-day "politicking". "politick-ing". It is fairly obvious that Cannon had everything going for him when the primaries rolled around. He is a very likable person, perhaps more likable on first meeting than Price. Cannon is a good face man, stands tall (his slogan), and is fairly adept at working work-ing his ideas out in small groups, in informal discussions. discuss-ions. Price, on the other hand, drives a hard bargain most of the time. His drive and initiative in pushing his ideas and programs has ironically enough irritated some people to the point of costing him support This past year, as ASUU 2nd vice-president, he could have perhaps been a little more tactful; such dilligence in his personal relationships with the people whose support sup-port he knew he would need would have saved him a great deal of the anxiety he experienced experi-enced waiting for the final count Friday. THERE WAS, however, a turning point in the campaign, when support for Cannon appeared ap-peared to waver, or when the previous non-voters appeared to suddenly decide that their votes indeed were needed if Price were to win. The support for Price seem-. seem-. ed to increase following each speaking engagement. This may have been partially due to the fact that Cannon, although al-though he can think on his feet fairly well, is not articulate, artic-ulate, while Price (who appears ap-pears to have taken a few lessons in oratory from the speech department's Royal Roy-al Garff) showed himself to be a brilliant speaker and debater de-bater and outshined Cannon every time the two spoke together. to-gether. In an exceptionally hardhitting hard-hitting campaign following his loss in the primaries, Price also gave the impression impress-ion of having a deeper insight in-sight into the nature and function of student government, govern-ment, its drawbacks and shortcomings, than his opponent. op-ponent. While each has a substantial substant-ial background in student activity act-ivity and government, it is of course, in the end, the ability abil-ity to put his background to work and the impression that ability makes which determines determ-ines the election outcome. Thus in this campaign we see an element generally conceded con-ceded to be non-existant in student elections: that background, back-ground, ability, experience, articulateness are conct-j fa students in choosing; !fa studentbody officers, Ai!;?;; haps some of fte trai:t: concepts of student char- - are, when students art' aware of other factors. - -so influential after all. ; ANOTHER HIGHLIGHT this campaign seems torfei be the breaking of a r-.j that elections are - ined by the Gre group of l,O0Ofratemit!- sorority members through some niysW .. nature, supposedly ; for members of J- sociological incline That belief gt by the election o y Kay, an independe nt-1 quired the office of a' coordinator- 1 ;; L Jobby a out J 1 shows that ot r; groups have v :;k Play in .ursdt4 comes, and shorn seems to me, istic attitude ato - "I'm not a Green make it" THE NEW OFFIS over within a wee ; will know, or not "the best voters, candidates, are to ulatedfor one of mature |