Demands for action
By Sara Del Nido
Published on Monday, May 1, 2006
To the Editor:
In his op-ed about the election of Tim Andreadis '07 ("Campaigning and Statistics," April 28), Nicholas Martin '07 seems to forget that people's votes often reflect the issues that they care most about. Whether or not Andreadis fulfills "all of his ambitious promises," the larger point is that those who cast their vote for him have made an explicit demand for action on the issues that Andreadis isolated in his platform, with which past leadership has been complacent. I would venture to guess that if Andreadis had not run as a write-in candidate, the voter turnout as a whole might have been lower.
Few politicians ever achieve all of their goals to perfection, but this does not mean that these politicians are therefore unworthy of endorsement. In Andreadis' case, his ideas are visionary and fresh, which is exactly what Dartmouth needs and deserves. Isn't it better to have a candidate who is passionate enough to rally student opinion behind him and bring new ideas to the table, however "ambitious," than to maintain the humdrum of past Student Assembly administrations that have created the current ethic of stagnation among the student body?