In an election campaign season that featured little disagreement and candidates that many felt were hard to tell apart, the results in the presidential and vice-presidential races could hardly have been more disparate.
Frode Eilertsen '99 won the Student Assembly presidency in a runaway, while Nahoko Kawakyu '99 took the vice presidency in a nail-biter.
But while their margins of victory were different, both Eilertsen and Kawakyu share one very important thing -- they were propelled to victory in large part because of their personalities.
Not much variety
Many of the issues were the same -- for example, reforming the Assembly, making it more representative and increasing its influence over the administration.
Furthermore, a lot of the candidates for Assembly president and vice president had worked closely with each other in the past, and may have been reluctant to engage in aggressive campaigns against one another.
As current Assembly President Jon Heavey '97 put it, there "wasn't a whole lot of variety on the ballot."
There was a clear separation between presidential write-in candidates Unai Montes-Irueste '98 and Kathy Kim '00 and the two candidates on the ballot, Eilertsen and Scott Jacobs '99.
The write-ins combined for just over 12 percent of the total, while Jacobs and Eilertsen combined for almost 80 percent of the vote.
Perhaps the biggest mystery of the election is how Eilertsen and Jacobs -- who orchestrated campaigns of similar proportions and ran on many of the same issues -- were separated by more than 600 votes and 40 percentage points.
"I'm shocked that it was so lopsided," Jacobs said. "Everyone I talked to thought it was going to be a close race."
Kim said she also was surprised by the disparity between Eilertsen and Jacobs' returns, since she said they had similar views.
Jacobs may have been hurt by low turnout. In fact, the 1,477 presidential ballots cast marks a six-year low.
Jacobs cited a pre-election poll printed by The Dartmouth on Tuesday -- which predicted a landslide victory for Eilertsen -- as one of the possible reasons for the low turnout.
"Honestly, I think people thought [the race] was over because of [The Dartmouth's] poll," Jacobs said.
'500 different reasons'
Montes-Irueste said "there weren't any real big issues in this campaign," but he thought "there were big non-issue factors" in the outcome of the election, such as endorsements and poll results.
Montes-Irueste said he thought there might not have been enough good questions asked of candidates in debates.
Though Matthew Benedetto '00 said he thought Eilertsen may have won because of his focus on specific plans, Heavey said he did not think the race was decided by a single issue.
"As for why people would chose one over the other," Heavey said, there are probably "500 different individual reasons."
Still, Heavey said he "wasn't really all that surprised" at the outcome. "I think [Eilertsen] was pretty much seen as the front runner, especially once [former presidential candidate Ben Hill '98] dropped out and endorsed him."
Eilertsen said he thought "all the candidates had good ideas."
Regarding Kawakyu's personal remarks about Eilertsen at Sunday's debate at the Hyphen, Eilertsen said he and Kawakyu have been friends "since the first day at this school. You're honest with all good friends."
Kawakyu said she and Eilertsen had a two-hour talk after Sunday's debate. "Now that the results are in, we are going to be working together," she said.
Commanding respect
In the vice-presidential race, Kawakyu overcame a late entry into the race and her write-in status to defeat Dave Altman '99, becoming the first write-in candidate ever to win election to the Assembly leadership.
Although the Assembly's vice-presidential races have traditionally been closer than the presidential races, this year's margin of eight votes is unprecedented.
"I was surprised that Nahoko won," Heavey said.
Altman said he thought Kawakyu's campaign was propelled by word of mouth and that it may have had more visibility than his campaign during the final days.
Altman said he was bothered by the introduction of issues regarding minorities and women late in the campaign, since he said his campaign always focused on representing the entire campus in the Assembly.
"She clearly commands a lot of respect from her peers for her work ethic and her attitude," Heavey said of Kawakyu. "That's not to say that Dave doesn't, because he does, as I think is demonstrated by the narrow margin."
Case Dorkey '99, who worked closely with Kawakyu's campaign, alluded to The Dartmouth editorial board's comment that said "she was well respected by her peers" and added "that's what carried her."
Though Kawakyu and Montes-Irueste entered the race on an informal ticket, Kawakyu edged out her opponent, while Montes-Irueste gained only 7.2 percent of the vote in the presidential race.
In explanation of the disparity between how they fared, Montes-Irueste said "I'm not Nahoko, that's the disparity."
