Mort fails to note that in September 2009 I proposed joint mailings by candidates; this was long before the announcement of his campaign. (See: “A Modest Proposal”: http://www.dartblog.com/data/2009/09/008634.php)

To date, the College has sent out a postcard to all alumni with Mort’s and John Replogle’s bio, a mass e-mail with similar information, and their names and bios were posted on the main Dartmouth web site for several days.

The three of us were recently pictured on an e-mailed Dartmouth in the News with a link that suggested “Visit the Vox the Vote website to learn more about the candidates and to view their websites.” However, the link took a reader to no such place.

Whether such communications are required by the AoA constitution or not, they have the effect of placing the Alumni Council’s two candidates before the voters — as have the multiple e-mails by Alumni Councillors to their constituents.

I have sent a mailing to a limited number of alumni in order to gather signatures — as required by the AoA constitution. How else was I supposed to get signed petitions? But other than the bad-link Dartmouth in the News, the Office of Alumni Relations has done nothing at all to notify alumni voters of my officially certified candidacy.

Once again the insiders on the Alumni Council, the Association of Alumni and the Office of Alumni Relations are showing their unjustified fear of petition candidates. Petitioners, once on the ballot, should be treated equally to Alumni Council candidates, and my proposal was a step in that direction.

Mort: Dartmouth UnDying has been running a continuous ad in the on-line D for a lot longer than Joe Asch has. They route people to their election informational site which then informs alumni only about Council and AoA nominated candidates, with specific links to your own campaign site.

Sure Asch is campaigning and raising attention with the voting public… just as you are doing, even to the point of having a formal campaign manager. At least Asch is doing his own work, which says something about the time he can commit to the Board.

The unstated reason for Asch’s request has nothing to do with money, as you well know… his mailing list is not as complete and current as those maintained by the college (especially timely email lists) and made accessible to Council members who can use them to promote their nominees, being yourself and John. Asch’s petition request letter would be superceded and forgotten if you would agree to a field-leveling single combined mailing.

Since Kondracke is the one who is running unopposed, it makes sense that the campaign managers have him doing the dirty work.

Dartmouth Undying has been advertising itself since before this vacancy was announced. Right now its site is promoting the council nominees. It is entitled to do that. At least it is current. When you go to the Hanover Institute website its current news section is months or years out of date.

Asch would save the most money for himself and Dartmouth if he withdrew from the race. At the moment he is promiting his campaign with his blog, which is owned by one of the trustees' employees. Kind of makes him look less “independent”.

The reason Joe can spend so much time on his own campaign is that he has nothing better to do and seems to have an infinite amount of spare time.

The fact that he is supported by the same group of alumni who funded the two lawsuits, and is often the mouthpiece for their opinions. Should give people pause when thinking about voting for him.

I was very disappointed to read Morton Kondracke’s reply to Joseph Asch. It seems like an unreasonable attack from start to finish. This from a candidate who states on his website that this is “time to end the rancor surrounding trustee elections that has damaged Dartmouth’s reputation.”

He says that “Asch already sent out an expensive mailer to thousands of alumni, ostensibly to secure 500 signatures for his petition, but clearly to promote his candidacy .” How does Kondracke imagine that Asch could have collected 500 signatures without a mailing?

Kondracke points to Asch’s support of the 2007 Alumni Lawsuit, yet to my knowledge will not publicly state whether or not he supports Trustee Parity, one of the most important issues to many alumni. Is this not “disingenuous?”

Good Old Mort. Running unopposed, Kondracke calls his running mates' opponent disingenous. That remark is itself disingenous, because Kondracke knows that Asch is serious and honest. Asch is also hard working and takes orders from no one which is easy to see is both Replogles and Kondrackes problem, among others. Can you imagine being run through your paces by the incumbent powers at the College to see if they will support you? What could possibly come out of the other end of that process? Sausage, at best, I would wager. And sausage they are. Kondracke and Replogle are the Bobbsey Twins of not knowing what they think about parity? Could that be a shall we say delicately, “lie?” Does anyone believe that Kondracke and Replogle don’t know what they think about parity and will find out what to think when they are elected? This does not pass the IQ above 20 test.

Then Kondracke complains about the lawsuits that have been an attempt to regain parity as a waste of that Oh so precious money, which up to now, no one has told how much. This of course means that it hasn't been much of anything as a cost to the College. So guess how Kondracke feels about parity? He doesn't give a damn about it and will take his place as an annointed hack. Looking for two dopes to help run the college? Vote for Replogle, his strategy that he is being told to follow, is to dummy up, be a nothing and let surrogates muddy up Joe Asch. Is this what passes for leadership at Dartmouth College, or is this more of the incestuous Board that we have become accustomed to and disgusted with?

Mort: I have reread your letter above, and find it interesting coming from a man in the business of words. You say Asch “ostensibly” sent a letter to secure petition signatures; what is that supposed to mean? How else do you propose he do so? And how do you expect he ask for signatures without giving reasons, what you call “clearly promoting himself”?

Further please do not imply the publicity you received from the College announcement was not to your benefit, by saying it was done as required by election rules and thereby implying not by your desire. It presumably went to all 68,000 alums. Did Asch mail that many people just to get 500+ signatures… my guess is no. You make a big deal that he spent money and that you did not… which makes the case that the playing field is not even but tilted towards the nominated candidates over petitioners. Only by adopting a proposal like Asch’s or others made in the past (I suggesting something similar to the AoA ballot committee 2 years ago) will we create a more even field. Petitioners today are forced to spend money on mailings merely to have the same reach that nominated candidates receive implicitly in the special visibility they receive via the current process.

PS Do you still lack a clear position on parity? And have you reconsidered the impact of a strategy making the College more dependent on federal handouts?

It appears you will be running unopposed. I ask that you consider the above issues with a true open mind once seated. This request comes from someone who has observed the challenges of governance over a number of years, from positions both inside and out.

Hot Air: So which is it, you imply Asch is a puppet of the Hanover Institute, and then suggest he is controlled by a trustee’s employee? Joe is outspoken, sometimes overly and uncomfortably so, but rest assured he is his own independently-thinking person. My guess is that all who personally know Joe will agree, even those strongly against his candidacy.

I love that Mort is running unopposed and still needs a campaign manager. He’s obviously a busy man. Let’s hope he finds more time for Dartmouth in his schedule after his upcoming coronation. Maybe in the meantime his campaign manager can produce a position paper for Mort on the Parity issue which he shamefully hasn’t opined on to date.

Asch is not “independent,” but he is not controlled by anyone as far as I can tell. He would make a good administrator or outside management consultant, cutting waste instead of generating it. He did not send out his mailing just to get signatures, he spent $$$ on it to make it into a campaign mailing to have effect AFTER his petition was granted. Replogle has not done any campaign mailings.

Not sure why Parity is an issue, since these two candidates are not going to get board to flip-flop if they tried. The four petition trustees got voted down, so how could these two do anything differently now that the board is larger? The budget is 10,000 times more important than Parity.

Hot Air thinkks that the symptoms are more important than the disease. The disease is a crappy appointed, some say annointed, Board. They control the budget and they are leftist, tax, spend, empire building, bureaucratic bloatists. Hot Air is one who likes to think of itself as “pragmatic” that means giving in to whatever the current circumstances are. This idea wuld have left slavery in place, the British Empire in control of the American colonies because we wouldn’t care about representation, we would care about the British budget. How far have some people allowed themselves to fall?

Mort Kondracke has always been a vocal but reasonable voice for conservatism. In that light, I am highly amused to see Asch, Dreisbach, Lachner et al. take him to task. Why is Joe running against Mr. Replogle, and not Mr. Kondracke, in the first place? The question begs the answer.

Joe, you’re a glutton for punishment. In every endeavor of yours of which I’m aware, while your intentions may be good going in, eventually you manage to screw things up, and then blame {the Left, the Media, the Administration, the Dean, the Former President, the Entrenched Bureaucrats} for your failure. You seem to desire to be miserable; in so doing, you make everyone else miserable, too.

I cannot, in all candor, imagine what you would do with true success.

“watch as they eat their own” may not have run his comments past the Alumni Relations dept., but he has gotten to the heart of the issue in making them. The DU insiders really believe that there is a conservative plot in the works. It goes like this: start with reducing bureaucracy and focusing on giving undergraduates their money’s worth and before you know it, coeducation will be ended, the Indian symbol will be restored, christian chapel will be required, the curriculum will be narrowed to the western canon, diversity will be banned, etc. This paranoia has put us in this spot. I’m a liberal atheist.