The Undergraduate Council for everyone's favorite self-important student body is currently electing a new president. With polls closing in just 36 hours, Harvard students (apathetic and otherwise) will surely end up with either a prank or a prodigal in office.  Ultimately, it doesn't really matter since the university administration will likely limit any big changes or new investments during the winners' term.

The primary contenders in Cambridge's latest slogan-fest include the Harvard Hooligan, that annoying kid from the YouTube videos in addition to  a few actual U.C. Reps.  While the more "serious" candidates deserve mention for the extent of their hypocrisy, the fake ones make for better blogging.  But seriously it's like a postmodern circus of Situationist proportions out there.  The Hooligan (a.k.a. Michael Koenigs '09) staged an assassination attempt during the bright-lights debate attended by approximately 9 people.  Hopefully, his freshman Alaskan-native running mate, Aneliese Parker '12, will step into his place.  Meanwhile, VP candidate Alexandra Petri '10 explained in an interview with On Harvard Time that her running mate was in fact the Invisible Man (à la Wells, not Ellison).  They seek to replace the U.C. with a Hapsburg prince.

Read about the follies of the more serious candidates after the jump.  Or vote now on the UC website!

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Today marks the final general voting day for Princeton's Undergraduate Student Government elections, where an alleged criminal runs unopposed for President, upholding Princeton's proud tradition of choosing the most offensively unfit humans possible for USG office. Soon-to-be-President Conor Diemand-Yauman stands accused of serving alcohol to minors, which, in the closed circuit of college life, is actually a campaign boon. In fact, it's his platform! The Prince explains,

As USG president his first priority will be to address the discrepancy between the two policies [statutory vs. university-wide drinking regulations] and general lack of clarity as to the consequences for students who decide to seek medical attention for friends in need. ... “If the way the Borough reacted to my situation is their typical response for all students, there is a definite problem, and I want to discuss this problem with them along with Princeton administrators to prevent possible consequences,” he said.

On the VP front, a shitstorm of 1AM emails and public call-outs have so thoroughly mucked the results that a re-vote has already been scheduled for later this week. It all started when, in a 1AM email to the entire student body, outgoing president Josh "Not Blackface" Weinstein endorsed his frat brother, Mike Weinberg, for VP. [ Pictured above: The brothers AEPi ] In the email, Weinstein said Weinberg was Diemand-Yauman's fav candidate, too. But then Die-Y sends an email saying he would never endorse Weinberg, which means Weinstein is a lying liar! So Weinstein sends another email apologizing, but Die-Y says it's not good enough, and then stuff gets really confusing, because everyone has the same two or three names. (Did you know the current VP's name is Mike W., too?)

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Good to know not every politically-minded youngster is afraid of negative press. Last Friday, George Krebs celebrated becoming president of the Columbia College Student Council with a champagne-soaked party. Bwog liveblogged the voting, results, and ensuing celebration in Krebs' dorm, featuring music like "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" and "We Are the Champions":

Krebs bounded down the Watt stairs and greeted us. "Thank you!" he yelled. He ran back up the stairs and slammed the door to his studio open. "WOOOOO!" he yelled. His party and their drunken cohorts yelled affirmatively, and responded with similar "WOOOOs."

A random drunken cohort held up a pinata shaped like a donkey. Krebs grabbed a broom out of absolutely nowhere and pounded the pinata. More "WOOOOs." Six Coors Lights fell out of the pinata and they were snatched up within seconds.

This is in keeping with Krebs' campaign promises:

"Nothing's off the record! Transparency!" They pointed at Bwog, who was timidly sitting on a couch. "TRANSPARENCY! WOOO," they continued.

When our generation to grows up and enters actual politics, the entire newscycle will explode from overabundance of digital image and disclosure.

Traditionally ignored by everyone else at Columbia, students from the School of General Studies did something slightly newsworthy two days ago when they attempted to impeach their comically incompetent Student Council President, Niko Cunningham.

[Ed: There's a picture of him here, but I happen to prefer lazy cats to upstanding young whippersnappers]

Accused of "constantly circumventing constitutional rules," Cunningham has allegedly spent a lot of his time in office not going to important meetings and then lying about it, with a dose of not getting GS a good financial aid package thrown in. Cunnigham counterargues that he "was voted in as an activist," which evidently exempts him from most activities. He did manage to attend the impeachment hearings, where the vote was 9 for, 8 against, and 3 abstentions, statistical proof that most people don't like him but not enough to impeach him. Those against the impeachment took the confusing stance that you can't really blame Cunningham because, actually, they were also incompetent. As GS senior class president Chikodi Chima put it, "Let those without sin cast the first stone."

In a Spectator op-ed, the sum total of the press leading up to the event, two GS students spread the blame even further, arguing, "Every one of us is culpable in this disastrous year." This policy of admitting to failures that aren't even their fault is a strange move for GS, which has been trying to raise its status in Columbian minds from "vague resentment" to at least "feigned politeness" for some time now. Fortunately for GS, most at Columbia probably aren't even aware of the event; even the GS student who sent IvyGate a tip about the meeting noted that he missed it. --J.D. Porter

That's right: we've done a complete 180. After thinking about things overnight (and reading this cogent analysis of the race),we've realized that Frances is actually pretty great and will stick it to the toolish establishmentarians of student government, questionable theological assertions and all.

Some reasons that Frances is awesome:

• Despite being a member of the Harvard College Republicans, Frances unanimously lost their endorsement.
• Her batshit crazy dad's blog reads like that of a right-wing Christiananarchisti.
• She wants to "destroy" The Crimson.
• She wants HBO in every dorm so that everyone can watch boxing.
• She writes for Ringtalk, some sort of boxing site.
• This excerpt from an email sent to Chris Lacaria, the current head of the Harvard Republicans and apparently Frances' sworn enemy.

The only thing I'm "reeling in disappointment" about is that humanity has to deal with your existence, and that because you go to this school there's a chance your tripe will be propagated to the masses. Oh, and I've never "casually lobbed" an insult at you that didn't come from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Lacaria."

• And then of course there's the whole fascist thing.

Note: this is not a joke. It's an actual endorsement. Please join her Facebook group here.

After the jump: the email exchange between Frances and Chris Lacaria, the jefe of the Harvard Republicans who declined to endorse her. It gives new meaning to the word "arch-nemesis."
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Frances Martel, our favorite Ivy League Republican sorta anti-Semite who is not Ann Coulter, is running for Harvard UC President. On Harvard Time interviewed her, and it turns out that she's endearingly weird in person.

But what's not so endearing is her fascistic, single-issue platform. If elected, the first thing Frances promises to do is "abolish parliamentary procedures." This way she can rule Harvard by fiat and make the Jews accept her Lord.

No, really. Some choice excerpts from the interview: "People in power are quivering"; "we'll blacklist them"; "I think I have the average perspective on the Jewish faith, which is 'It's nice.' I don't consider myself Jewish...I think it's wrong that they're doing what they're doing, and when you write persuasive pieces -- when you write opinion editorials -- you use all the weapons in your arsenal you can to convince people that you're right."

Believe it or not, Martel's running mate - who has not made a single campaign appearance - is Jewish.

Watch the video. Watch Frances' awkward campaign manager nod and pretend to answer questions as Leo Zimmerman. Watch Frances in her pantsuit answer an entire question in Spanish.

After the jump: some other candidates field questions from On Harvard Time. They're more normal, though, and therefore more boring.

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Let us contemplate the possibilities.

1. You're out of sunblock and don't want a burn; you happen to find a can of black paint next to your swim trunks in the back of your closet.

• Not okay to wear blackface.

2. You are going to a "Vaudeville" theme party but you can't find your ventriloquist's dummy; your goth girlfriend offers to share her black makeup.

• Still not okay to wear blackface.

3. You are a student at Princeton University planning a run for Student Government president. It is Halloween, and you think it'd be funny to be "Peter Pan's Shadow" by painting your entire body black and running around terrorizing people. You don't mean to be racist, and you have tons of black friends, anyway, and they all think it's okay.

• Definitely not okay to wear blackface, especially if there are cameras present.

PUSG presidential candidate (the Prince says he's a shoo-in) Josh Weinstein '09 found himself in Blackface Situation #3 freshman year, and judged it okay to post the shady pictures on his blog, complete with Malcolm X and Rosa Parks references. Though Weinstein removed the material more than a year ago, a "Concerned Undergraduate" (who set up an e-mail account solely for the purpose of anonymously tipping this story) sent it to us this week, which means "Concerned" saw and copied the material years ago and has been sitting on it ever since.

Smear campaign? Inigo Montoya-level vendetta? As for how this will affect Weinstein's candidacy, let us not forget Princeton's election last year of president Rob "Rodent-Roast" Biederman, pyromaniacal torturer of squirrels (who only had to beat Grant "Get-Off-Our-Campus" Gittlin, banned from student housing due to extreme disciplinary disturbance). Which is to say, Princeton has a high tolerance for faux pas.

View the pictures, blog entry, and Weinstein's new statement on the matter, after the jump.

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As if Brown student elections weren't absurd enough already, the Brown Daily Herald gifted us yesterday with this delightful lede:

Eric Mukherjee '09, the candidate for president of the Undergraduate Council of Students who was disqualified early Tuesday morning by UCS elections board, was drafted into the race by his friends and was initially unaware that he was running, the one-time candidate told The Herald.

Yup. He didn't even know he was in the race.

Ben Struhl '09, who said he was responsible for much of Mukherjee's campaign - and who represented Mukherjee in Friday's candidates debate at the Sharpe Refectory - said a "Draft Mukherjee" campaign began as something of a joke and involved about 30 of Mukherjee's friends.

"Everyone except me," Mukherjee said.

It's a shame this guy didn't stay in the race. We would have endorsed him in a second.

The thing about student council elections is-- Wait! Don't stop reading!

Sorry, we should never start an item with "student council elections." It's one of those phrases that, like "tax reform" and "In 1647...", induces instant brain shutdown. Which is why Michael Morgenstern's 50-minute documentary on Brown's 2006 student council race is nothing short of a miracle.

To answer your first question: Yes, we watched the whole thing. To answer your second: Yes, you should, too.

The movie follows the three candidates for UCS president. Along the way, you see all the hallmarks of back-stabby political drama: students talking shit about other students ...  Well, that's actually it, but it's pretty fun to watch. Perhaps it could have used a major campaign sabotage, or a sex scandal, or an assassination. But given the subject matter, the movie does an incredible job of making you care about a race that most Brown kids were probably too busy watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force to even follow.

The characters make it work. There's "dumb" "jock" John (scare quotes because you have to keep in mind, it's Brown), the lacrosse-playing superhottie who means well, but looks about as adept on the debate floor as Stephen Hawking on a basketball court. Then there's Zac, the silver-tongued Karl Rove lookalike who, in his first interview, remarks ever so subtly that he got into Harvard. Zac knows everyone and everyone knows him -- as an asshole. (He freely admits this in the film.) Lastly, there's Arthur: idealistic, outgoing, doomed. The filmmaker, himself a Brown junior, manages to weave a cohesive narrative around these three players, tracking them to meetings, interviewing them behind the scenes, and milking other students for quotes so gem-like they sparkle.

It's not like this film is going to solve the problem of student apathy -- which, come to think of it, never seems like much of a problem when the issues at hand are greater than swipe access and dining hall hours. But it definitely helps de-douchify the sort of people who four years of college teaches you to despise. We don't find ourselves saying this much, but big ups to everyone involved in this project. (For a more cinematic experience, you can see the hi-res version here.)

P.S. -- What's with that unicorn dance? Probably just what happens when you let students design their own curriculum.

At most schools, student government types can be written off as self-important and kinda silly. At Harvard, for example, one campaign has a spokesperson who writes "embargoed" press releases. But don't you dare dismiss the undergrad politicians at Princeton: they're street-hardened criminals as scarred as they come.

Okay, not quite. These guys haven't done time or anything, but by Ivy standards they're tough mofes. Presidential candidate Grant Gittlin '08 has been forced to live off-campus (a rare punishment) after three disciplinary violations -- and that was while serving as Class of 2008 president. But those MIP-type jobs are tame compared to his opponent, Rob Biederman '08, who's been accused of setting a squirrel on fire.

Sorry, squirrel carcass. Biederman claims he was "more of a bystander" than a "driving force" in the squirrel-burning, which he calls a "non-issue." "I don't think there's a single person on the USG who doesn't do silly things from time to time," he told the Princetonian. Yeah, chill out guys, it was dead.

Frankly, it sounds like these guys are qualified because of their pasts, not despite them. Gittlin says he got university president Shirley Tilghman's go-ahead to run for USG prez even after his disciplinary history. Biederman also had some administrative face-time as the squirrel embers were cooling, and apparently no formal action was taken. These are guys who know the university inside and out and inside again. May the gangsterest man win!