[1230] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: a humble opinion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (maitland)
Thu Mar 14 20:16:19 2002
Message-ID: <200203142325.SAA21071@wd-40.mit.edu>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 18:25:42 -0500
From: maitland <surreal@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
you bring up some good points justin, but:
1. re: precedence: if in the future all ua presidency candidates
promise $10 to all who vote for them if they win (from the bush
fund or whatever it is), hooray. we, the voters, win. if they
decide that they want to use their _own_ money to up the stakes,
that's an entirely different matter, and i'm pretty sure this
doesn't set a precedent for that.
2. principles: i think that the larger principle is not necessarily
whether or not the UA is impotent, but rather whether or not it is
ethical to say that any candidate can be disqualified for his
campaign platform, especially in a situation like this one, where
whoever wins the election has access to that money. (wow, that was
a long sentence.) everyone is on a level playing field with regard
to how much money they have to spend. other candidates might say
that they're going to use the money for study breaks or whatever.
rhett and victor are simply saying that they'll give it to their
supporters.
3. nobody has collected money yet. the money doesn't get distributed
unless they are elected. whether a person voted for them because
of the money or not, his vote will be disqualified because he voted
for creighton/brar. unless, of course, the appeal goes through.
-maitland
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