What the F#@! is a Mook Anyway?

Our candidacy began at 4:20, forty minutes before the filing deadline. At least that’s what the sandwich board outside the EMU read. Already late for my biology class, I decided why not skip it entirely and take care of the important business, like setting straight the University as a whole? Running for the Presidency seemed as good a place to start as any. By 4:25 I was in, out and official, as was my running mate, Ezra Mannix. He just didn’t know it yet.

A braintrust was immediately formed, a steel reserve of campaignage: myself, Ezra, and our Attorney, who, despite being bogged down in several civil litigation cases of his own was willing to help in humble regard for the Greater Good.

We were running on the Your Mother campaign. Because Your Mother would vote for us. She did.

It was our Attorney’s idea, who understood that the key to getting votes was to market yourself well. “Ezra and Luke are such nice boys, you’ll vote for them – if you love me, I mean.” Hey, it was your mother who said that.

The problem we faced was thus: the University of Oregon, and all its inherent faults. And how we were the best people to fix it.

First, we need a twenty four hour building on campus – (you wouldn’t believe how many students I’ve talked to who don’t understand WHY we might need a twenty four hour building! Why would people want to study after midnight? Mooks, all!)

Next, put a clock on the tower of the EMU—

And of course, to bring the Blazers to Eugene for an exhibition game— We threw in a couple other tangibles to represent the student body at large. Use the dorm meal cards in the EMU restaurants. Covered bike racks in strategic locations. Establishing full-tenured professorship for Chuck Hunt (whom I’m certain the Commentator nobly supports).

Now that we had at least one platform for each member of the student body it was time to get the word out. Because once people knew they agreed with us, they would vote for us. C’mon, this is America.

Assisted with a half-gallon of Old Crow Bourbon and a giant marker from Rite-Aid we made the first of the campaign posters, focused by our two marketing themes: Ezra Knows Your Mother. And don’t get mooked again.

Bailey and Nisser were already wearing around their red screen-printed t-shirts and trying to get out the vote in 2002… mooks, all. And that’s why we’d get votes. The ridiculous reason we even had a chance with less than a hundred bucks and three weeks to prepare. Because students are tired of getting mooked. What the hell does the ASUO Exec do for you? Nothing, again, and next year, same old shit.

Our first set of posters didn’t even last the day. Campaigns even more cynical than ours complained that they covered other posters. They did. We put them up on that bench-thing by the EMU that’s always plastered with flyers and no one gives a goddam about.

Funny posters. Well, we thought they were funny. But we were drunk. At least they didn’t say It’s about issues, not gimmicks. Our posters covered up no more than 5% of any other campaigns posters, which were plastered everywhere.

Too bad. They were taken down so that you, the voter, could consider what All The Buzz Was About and make sure you had ample exposure to the Bailey-Nisser name for the next three weeks. Your mother would not vote for them.

So we began our campaign blitz – trying to get the word out to the students that we represented them. But it’s harder than you think. People have lost all their faith in the ASUO – and to think I wondered why.

Our braintrust of three was very underrepresented without the I’ve-been-in-the-ASUO-since-I-was-a-freshman mook campaign volunteers, who will one day go so far as us and run for office and at the 2006 Presidential debate can a speech about how they support diversity and student leadership on the U of O campus and goddamit, after they’ve tossed a thousand dollars down the hole hopefully they’ll lose too. Probably not though. The only other candidate who was tired of the same old shit was Timothy “Judas” Dreier, anti-subversive, whose elections goals were uniquely met when the red shirts were eliminated in the primary elections. Ironically, this was the one goal that unified the other nine campaigns in silent agreement.

My goodwill towards other candidates may appear to be lacking. Before telling you that they’re ALL mooks, which just might be the case, I’m going to plug for Haben and Oscar, who got shafted out of the election by soft money, coming in a close third to the campaign that easily had the highest budget thanks to mommy’s money and got little kids to hand out their flyers on the last day of the election. No offense Ritchie and Babkes.

What the hell, offense. But there’s no way you can deny it with each of your parents tossing down a cool five hundred the first week of the elections.

John and Hayes are also cool – kinda. Unfortunately they represented the same demographic as us, and we were in direct competition for votes. Which makes it even more ironic that we tied.

And props go out to McNeill and Stewart, who personally made the election twenty percent cooler. If only they had a gimmick.

If you vote in the general election, which you probably won’t, you are guaranteeing that the rest of us will get mooked again. Why do you give a fuck if your soon-to-be ASUO president is running around in a gorilla suit? Wouldn’t you rather have a place to study with coffee and internet access after the library closed at midnight? Or maybe better desks and chairs in some of the shittier U of O classrooms?

No. Because if you did you would have voted for us. Or maybe you just didn’t know about us, because our flyer-making budget was limited to what we could crank out in the EMU computer lab so all our flyers were black and white… and that’s after the majority of them were taken down for infracting some pissy election rules… Or maybe you missed the Presidential debates, I mean hey, most of the student body did. But that’s the point. Why else would they hold them fully three weeks before the election upstairs in the EMU? Why are people afraid to debate in public, say in the Fishbowl, say from 11-1 on a bright sunny day when people will actually see who is running?

We wouldn’t want that. You might not vote for the ASUO’s favorite mook.

Maybe you don’t read the Oregon Daily Emerald, and if you don’t, don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging you to. It’s even worse than the Insurgent. But we were on the cover one day.

Or you, the voter, might be more educated than people think, and vote down the biggest mook, who just happened to receive less votes that he did the previous year. Hey, his running mate was nice. But this is politics and nice just doesn’t cut it. That’s why the leading ticket is a blond. Which is almost worth anyone’s vote.

Our blitz continued during the final week , highlighted by a 150 square foot sheet of black plastic with Vote Ezra and Luke spray-painted on it, half a dozen hand-painted t-shirts that said CLICK WITH YOUR MIDDLE FINGER and a couple more bottles of the Old Crow.

So if you voted, cool, thanks. If you didn’t there’s a good chance your name is Glen. Mook off. If you’re planning on voting in the generals, you might want to think twice. The candidates are so similar they’re both distributing yellow flyers. Or you could tell them you’re really excited about their campaign, have them both drop another thousand and let the final results come down to a bloody beatdown in front of the EMU, winner takes all—

Congratulations, U of O. The two campaigns that spent the most money survived the primaries. American politics 101.

Luke Willet, a senior environmental studies major, is in no way affiliated with the Oregon Commentator. But he met Pete at Taylor's, and that's good enough.