Andrew Golis

This article from the Crimson sketches out the successes and failures of the Mahan administration (for those of you who aren’t from Harvard, he is the current Undergraduate Council President). While I obviously have some biases in the whole situation (my roommate is quoted as a “Mahan ally”) I think it paints an interesting contrast between what you saw with Rohit’s presidency and Mahan’s. Rohit was a deal-maker, a non ideologue. If you want to be crass (and I do), you could say that he didn’t really care what got done on the UC, just that things did, that the machine ran smoothly, that power was maintained and expanded. Mahan is not, and could not, be this type of leader. It’s unsuprising to me that it’s been a controversial semester because Mahan is an ideologue. Because of this he’s done a lot of politically stupid things in the interest of his ideals and in many ways has sacrificed future success because of it. But he’s also furthered his causes in very real and concrete ways by throwing his weight emphatically behind them regardless of what was “politically savvy”.

It’s funny to me how the UC simulates a lot of these political structures and dynamics. This really is the classic trade off between, say, a Howard Dean and a Bill Clinton. Do you want a leader who is willing to fight for what he believes even if it creates a poisonous political environment and sacrifices political capital or a leader who compromises his ideals and shifts his positions but always maintains control and power? I guess the stupid and obvious answer is that you need some of both, or one in some situations and one in others. And, of course, to say that Mahan is all one, and Rohit all the other is a gross simplification. It is, however, the basic political balancing act.

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