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Associated Campaigning Could Open Floodgates

In response to complaints made against Sarah Haar, Ali Cole stated the following:

“The plain white tees with red hearts are what is known as associated campaigning. For example, if MJ [Michael Jordan] was to get people dressed in basketball gear every night, with nothing to do with his campaign written anywhere then this would be the same.

“The crucial part is that the white tees with red hearts don’t have anything written on them about Sarah’s campaign and so cannot be factored into her budget. As you can appreciate, charging for anyone wearing a tshirt with a heart on could get silly.”

To me, this sets a dangerous precedent. Furthermore, have the floodgates been opened?

What is there to now stop Josh Hurrell buying plain orange tshirts for his entire campaign team? Or Michael Jordan buying basketball gear for all of Ashby Rovers FC to wear on campus? Or Georgia Cheyne buying union flags for the entire poledancing society?

As associated campaigning materials, these would clearly not fall under the budget cap that VP Democracy Ali Cole fought so hard to enforce at Union Council and which, on the whole, has been so well received.

Is “associated campaigning” to become the new loophole which candidates need to try and get a larger presence on campus without breaking the £100 budget rule? Personally, if I was a candidate, especially one behind in the polls, I would be looking to take full advantage of this.

To the general student, a colour, logo or symbol such as a heart, tick or moustasche may be all that they can remember of some campaigns, especially on a night out, and I don’t think these small touches should be underestimated.

I would also raise the question, where do you draw the line? Is “campaigning material” simply items which have “anything written on them about” a campaign? Of course not, sweets being the obvious example. Where does campaign materials end and associated campaign materials start?

And finally, what can be done? As Cole rightly points out in his email, you cannot ban a colour of a tshirt nor prevent everyone wearing Nike clothing.

Solutions on a postcard please (or just the comments section below).

Andrew Lawton

Andrew Lawton

Co-Founder
Andrew is a Director of The Epinal Limited.
Andrew Lawton

@LawtonAJ

Maths & Sport Science Student. Founding Editor of @TheEpinal and future journalist
Andrew Lawton
Andrew Lawton

Latest posts by Andrew Lawton (see all)

Posted by on February 21, 2013. Filed under Andrew Lawton,Editorial,Elections.
  • Former Exec Member

    Ah what goes around comes around. Associated campaigning is an oldie but a goody! Associated campaigning really started with the campaign of former AU President ‘Ginger’ Joe Callander in the 2004-05 elections.

    As you can probably imagine he painted the campus orange and campaigned vigorously in an orange suit – and lo associated campaign was born. Over the course of the next two to three elections associated campaigning became a big issues and was in essence ‘banned’ from the election process.

    Two things happened – money spent on consumables increased dramatically to the point where it has led to introducing a budget limit to make elections affordable and open to any student. (rightly in my opinion) Secondly the brand presence of candidates and in turn the election decreased and made campaigning and education on the issues so much the poorer.

    Unfortunately there is no easy answer to associated campaigning and how you police it (nigh on impossible IMHO). Unlike consumables the costs of associated campaigning can actually be spread amongst friends. Ultimately how difficult is it to ask a friend to wear / buy a certain colour t-shirt to give further brand presence to a campaign and it could be argued that any student could ask their friends to make that effort of support without impacting on the individual candidate financially. Not only that but it has the benefit of increasing the presence of the election process on campaigning which can only be a good thing – no?

  • Morgado

    These are the questions you should be asking past candidates; how much of your election spend was on ‘associated campaigning’. In truth, I think you’d find that in every election to date, there have been budgetary restrictions that would classify candidates deeming spending in excess of £1,000 as over budget.

    Candidates utilising this – credit to them. In past years, halls have organised themed socials associated with campaigns but not directly related. There’s no floodgates what-so-ever.

    You can’t ban someone from entering the union for wearing a t-shirt that could be deemed associated with a campaign. But at the same time, why punish someone that has been creative!?

    Lets say, someone who you didn’t speak to, didn’t door knock, found your poster, read your manifesto online and really liked what you said. And is so passionate about your campaign that they want to campaign for you. Should a candidate be penalised for a campaigner that they had no direction or control over? Again something that can’t be policed.

    There are so many loopholes with elections … its time for candidates to get creative … only a few days left!!! :)

  • Jonny Salmon

    Andrew – This sort of thing has gone on for years. Whether it be Faraday’s pacman party in support of Ewan Paterson or Jamie Oliver buying his campaign team chef trousers to name but a few. So it’s hardly a new issue.

    What constitutes as campaign material will be outlined in the elections rules. If any of the associate material outlined in this example where to have a candidates name etc. written on them then it would become campaign material. It would then be the responsibility of the candidate to ensure that this material was removed if it was not declared in their budget.

    At the end of the day this sort of thing raises the awareness of the elections and if it wasn’t for this “loophole” then another one would open up somewhere else. I agree it goes against the idea of an imposed budget but there is often no way to prove that this has come directly out of a candidates pocket. Or for that matter what’s to stop me wearing for example a ‘Nike’ tshirt on a night out? I think it should continue to be allowed simply for the reason it is practically impossible to police.

  • Rob

    It’s nice to see candidates taking some initiative, it’s clever and should be applauded.

  • Dave Rogers

    Joey Callender’s ginger campaign was ace! First one I properly remember that stuck out. Campus was awash with orange. Don’t think there’s been one quite as intense since. Maybe ‘Grogan for gold’

    Associated campaigning was the most fun thing part of my campaign.

    Dave “Jolly” Rogers – We had a pirate ship on the union lawn, a bloke dressed in a parrot suit going round doing “Jolly Spotter”, AU Clubs and societies doing Pirate fancy dress socials. It was mega. Most importantly it was noticable, it got people involved and it was fun!

    Elections need to engage students, and to do that, there needs to be an element of fun and hijinx amongst the serious stuff.

    And this “Oh it’s a popularity contest” guff can get gone, too. That’s democracy. The most popular candidate gets the most votes and wins the election!

  • Alumni

    Echoing everyone else, it’s an ongoing issue, and one that is impossible to manage.

    Personally, I do think it has got out of hand in previous years, where t-shirts have been worn in a blatant attempt to extend one’s campaign team for the evening.

    But I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s a lot of sneaky goings on this year. With such a low budget, I am confused as to how there are candidates with large amounts of professionally printed t-shirts when in previous years candidates have spent in excess of this years entire budget on t-shirts alone. Are these prices really available to every candidate?

    Whilst I understand that Elections Committee have, to an extent, justified their budgeting decisions, I still think it’s a bit wishy washy.

  • Jade

    As the above comments have all said assosciated campaigning has always been around, and to be honest you couldn’t possibly police it without introducing strict guidelines on what people could/couldn’t wear to the union. For instance, at Hey Ewe on Wednesday a girl was wearing a union jack dress but she was nothing to do with Georgia Cheyne’s Ginger Spice campaign (I asked her – she didn’t even know Georgia). Similarly, with Ali Cole and Sophie Sander’s campaigns last year several unrelated students were wearing stars. Preventing any symbols assosciated with elections would require the union to implement a dress code, which in my opinion seems rather ridiculous.