University of Virginia Library

New Deal For Conservatives

It's about time. Ever since the emergence
of the University Party, it's been clear that the
College caucuses, Skull & Keys and Sceptre
Society, were outmoded political organizations
which no longer served any useful
purpose except to help the opposition win
elections. Finally someone is attempting to
replace them with a true party.

The caucuses are remnants of the days
when College activities were completely
controlled by the fraternities. In such a
competitive vacuum, where ideas didn't mean
much in elections, fraternity power brokers
fostered the caucus system to exercise their
power. As far as the fraternities were
concerned the caucuses were perfectly suited
to their needs. They engendered election
apathy, allowed politicos to advance by
rolling logs, and effectively kept independents
out of College politics.

The challenge of the University Party, first
broached in 1967 with the successful
candidacy of Jacques Jones, made it clear that
the caucuses' days were numbered. The
University Party, and later the Virginia
Progressive Party, had an ideology which
appealed to many College voters whom the
caucuses had never bothered with. They have
dominated Student Council elections since
their inception.

The caucus candidates, in contrast, were
forced to run on their faces and personal
reputations. The candidates had widely varied
ideological positions because they had been
nominated not as standard-bearers for a
platform, but because they rolled enough logs
in the fraternity houses which controlled the
caucus voting. Thus, they faced tremendous
handicaps in getting the voters to know and
identify with them.

Still, for two years the caucuses refused to
change, for several reasons. First they still
controlled Honor Committee elections, and
generally nominated caucus officers to run for
those positions. The officers, understandably,
were not eager to change or eliminate what
promised to be a successful vehicle in the
spring honor committee elections. The hold
that the caucuses had on Judiciary elections,
and the similar desire of other caucus officers
to run for the Judiciary committee, contributed
much the same debilitating effect.
Moreover, there could be no pressure from
underneath to change, since the caucuses had
no membership; the "members" were pledges
that each house rounded up to vote on caucus
night - for whomever the fraternity had
agreed in advance to vote for.

Thus the caucuses continued to flounder
about, nominating losing candidates and
blaming their losses on everything except
themselves, where the blame really belonged.
Finally this fall, someone has decided to do
something about it. A new party tentatively
named the "Jefferson Party" is seeking to get
Skull & Keys and Sceptre Society to step
aside in its favor.

The new party, while it obviously caters to
the conservative elements predominant in
fraternity politics, will have no overt fraternity
control, thus hopefully opening it to all
the conservatives in the College, whose help
the fraternities sorely need if they are ever to
win elections again. It will be run on a one
man-one vote system, and the candidates will
presumably subscribe to the party's platform.

We don't think there are enough conservatives
around in the College to make the
Jefferson Party extremely successful. We
welcome its emergence, however, since it
should provide conservatives with a constructive
political outlet, one which should help
make the College Student Council elections a
true test of the ideas broached in the
campaigns. We hope that Skull & Keys and
Sceptre will have the good sense to retire
gracefully.