BREAKING CRIMSON ENDORSEMENT: who knew? not me!
As Judy Miller notoriously said, I'm only as good as my sources. That aside, I've got a nice little handful of them at this point telling me that, contrary to my apparently wildly off base prediction, Voith/Gadgil won the Crimson endorsement this afternoon in a close vote with a high turnout. If true (and sources or not it is still if), this means that rather than the Haddock/Riley campaign completing an unlikely transformation from scrappy under dogs to full-blown front runners, I would call this race a complete coin toss. Then again, as my misguess on the Crimson indicates, it's hard to know...I had guessed that Haddock/Riley's CLC/Social Planning/SEC-bashing would score them points with the Crimson and that a good get out the vote operation would bring them the rest of the way home. As one incoming Crimson leader said to me "he basically agrees with the entire Crimson staff positions, so I don't see how we can not endorse him." But, as incoming Associate Editorial Editor Piotr Brzezinski said in the comments section (commenting on the debate in general), "there are many different reasons for endorsing a given candidate, and, although you disagree, many people believe that this election is more than a social planning debate." While I'm still a little surprised by this, it appears that I not only over-simplified the Crimson's approach and opinions, but also how the Haddock/Riley plan is being received. Who knew?
So there you have it: I was wrong, and this thing is getting pretty interesting...
Please remember CC's policy on anonymous comments.
posted by andrew golis @ 9:32 PM
4 Comments:
It is more than a bit disingenuous to quote me in a context that implies that I had suggested anything whatsoever about the why the Crimson's had made its decision (whatever that decision was). All I had said was that there are many issues at stake, and many reasons to endorse (or not to endorse) a candidate, NOT that the Crimson had made its decision on something other than the social planning debate. For all you (in theory) know, we decided it on the basis of the social planning debate.
I suppose that this is what I get for posting here...
I didn't mean to imply that you were commenting on the actual endorsement, if I thought that were true I wouldn't have qualified the statement to say that I'm not sure, especially considering your current position. All I was saying is that, as a member of the Ed Board, you were pointing out that many of you don't believe that this is the only issue and that I was therefore wrong to think so. I hope that makes sense...
Also, it frustrates me that you would respond angrily to a post that was essentially admitting that I was wrong and citing your fair criticism as indicative of that. Also, to ensure that no one else misunderstands, I have changed the post...
I almost think that this change has actually made it worse, because it leaves "debate" ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean "intra-Crimson debate". I had specifically avoided offering any comment on what issues had been relevant to the Crimson endorsement debate and only said that there are many issues relevant to the election (there are many potential reasons to endorse a candidate). In other words, the "many people" in my quote means "many Harvard students" not "many Crimson editors".
In fact, the reason I didn't identify myself as an Associate Editor was in order avoid the implication that I was commenting on the intra-Crimson debate, rather than the campus-wide debate.
To clarify why I originally responded in such a tetchy manner: discussions leading up to Crimson editorial opinions are supposed to be strictly off the record, and therefore it would have been highly inappropriate for me to comment on why the Crimson made its decision, or even on what issues had been discussed. I'd be happy to discuss the merits of this policy (in fact, I believe that discussions and votes should be public) but, given the current policy, Crimeds do not have the right to chitchat about editorial discussions.
That said, I greatly appreciate the fact that you were willing to amend your original post, as well as the fact that this forum allows one to give feedback like this (as opposed to, say, the Crimson, which can misquote more or less with impunity). Also I appreciate that you, unlike many people, are willing to admit to over-simplifications (again, I'll be the first to admit that the Crimson is occasionally guilty of both over-simplification and unwillingness to admit to error).
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