ASUU Candidates Blanket Campus With Posters

The U's hallways will be covered with a new shade of teal or tie-dye from now until Spring Break when the Associated Students of the University of Utah elections end.

Focus and Spork, the two parties campaigning in the election, put up posters and passed out T-shirts and hats for their parties on Saturday, the first day of the public campaign.

Each party produced about 1,000 posters for the campaign which sport the parties' official colors. Focus chose teal and Spork used tie-dye.

No posters or T-shirts could be publicly visible before 10 a.m. on Saturday. Both parties met at the Union Food Court and instructed Senate and General Assembly candidates to put up posters in the colleges each party is running to represent. Under the organization of party leaders, each group of candidates grabbed a stack of 15 posters, a roll of tape and took off.

Friends and relatives showed up to help pick up the slack for any candidates who did not show, such as Focus' missing pharmacy college candidates and approximately 20 missing Spork candidates.

Even though Spork's turnout was almost half of Focus', the job was still completed as planned, said John Bowers, Spork's vice presidential candidate.

"We handed out a lot of stuff beforehand since we knew not everyone was going to make it today," he said.

Dave Martini, the ASUU elections registrar, audited each building for violations of the campaign posting rules. Candidates have until today to fix any problems, such as posters on doors or painted surfaces. If they aren't fixed by today, a grievance will be filed against the responsible party.

Both Spork and Focus have made websites available, as well -- Spork at spork2008.blogspot.com and Focus at www.thefocusparty.com.

Saturday also marked the first day of Dialogue Week -- the seven days when candidates can speak with student groups before active campaigning begins.

March 03, 2008