GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum backed out of Hillsdale College’s Constitutional Symposium last Saturday night, 48 hours before it was scheduled to start.
Santorum’s decision came after a frenzied week of student and administrative efforts to put together Hillsdale’s first forum for presidential hopefuls, including hours of phone calls, sleepless nights, and thousands of dollars of sunk costs for the school’s administration.
“We laid the groundwork for something really great — and we almost did it,” said Elliot Gaiser, Collegian opinions editor and Constitution Symposium Chair.
The event drew cooperation from Central Hall to Benzing Hall and back, at a time when almost all upper-level administrative staff were in California for a National Leadership Seminar.
“I wish people would know just how close we came to doing a thing that CNN and state party chairmen couldn’t do,” Gaiser said. “If anything, it’s shown me that people our age can move the world if we set our minds to it.”
The story of the event includes candidates’ campaigns suggesting dozens of different dates, days of “radio silence,” calls to staffer upon staffer and senior state politicos, and ultimately, Santorum’s withdrawal.
The Plan
Gaiser said he considered the idea of a presidential forum for months before getting affirmation from college administrators.
The green light came after Hillsdale President Larry Arnn cornered Gaiser in Saga, Inc, at the beginning of February, three weeks before the Feb. 28 Michigan primary.
“Dr. Arnn looks over at me and says, ‘Dyou think you can do this?’ I say, ‘I can gosh darn try,’ and Dr. Arnn says, ‘I think we’re going to try this,’” Gaiser said.
That week, Gaiser and senior Mike Morrison, juniors Katy Bachelder and Sarah Anne Voyles, and sophomores Melika Willoughby and Brianna Walden formed a Hillsdale Constitutional Symposium Executive Committee under administrative point-person Production Assistant Victoria Bergen ‘11.
“The six of us would walk up to the president’s office, Victoria would join us, we were greeted by Natalie Mock — all of us graduates or students from the past two years. We walked into Dr. Arnn’s office and sat down at his table and worked from the office of Dr. Arnn,” Willoughby said, laughing.
Provost David Whalen said the administration’s position on the event was established from the outset. He said the college asked that each candidate be invited to speak and the event disrupt campus life as little as possible.
“We’re not going to endorse a candidate,” he said.
He also emphasized that the structure of the event was important — if a political candidate spoke at Hillsdale, his address was to support the college’s goal of education, and not stage a rally.
“This is not going to be a campaign stop that presents another stump speech,” Whalen said. “The fact that this is an academic institution with an academic purpose was foremost in planning the event.”
After dozens of phone calls to each campaign, Walden put in more than 48 hours of phone calls alone, student organizers arrived at an impasse.
“We were at this stalemate position — everyone said, ‘We’ll come if Santorum comes,’ and Santorum said, ‘We’ll come if other candidates come,’” Willoughby said.
To add to the complication, administrators needed to place an order for sound and stage equipment to replace Hillsdale’s own technology, which was with staff out at the NLS in California.
The night of Feb. 14, Gaiser said he got a call from administrators. They were going to pull the plug unless students could get a solid confirmation by 8 p.m. that night.
“It was a no harm, no shame kind of deal,” Gaiser said.
Willoughby said the group understood the administration’s deadline, but feared it would push Santorum to back out of the symposium.
“To say we were apprehensive would be a understatement. We had countless people praying, on campus, in our home states,” she said. “At 7:41 p.m. we got the email we’d all been waiting for, saying that Sen. Santorum would like to attend Hillsdale College’s symposium.”
“We were ecstatic,” she said.
Santorum released a statement to The Collegian on Wednesday, Feb. 15.
“I am excited to again visit Hillsdale College and have the opportunity to address the important issues facing our nation,” Santorum said. “I am excited to share my vision for a brighter America, and the life experiences that have helped shape those positions.”
The First Letdowns
After the confirmation email, administrators placed orders for equipment. Bergen said they knew that the up-front deposits might be lost, but placed them anyway.
“We were committed from that point to spending whatever we needed to to offer the best event possible,” she said.
Gaiser said he drafted a press release to publicize the event, but administrators never published it.
The first disappointments came when representatives for candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich did not follow-through with their verbal commitments to come if Santorum confirmed.
“They were breaking their word to us,” Willoughby said. “We went back to them and said, ‘We have a publicized commitment from Santorum that he is indeed coming’ … and they told us ‘No.’”
“That was frustrating.”
On the night of Feb. 15, The Hillsdale Collegian broke the story online, eventually getting picked up by GOP blogger Michelle Malkin and Newsmax, among others.
Santorum Backs Out
Less than 48 hours ahead of the Feb. 20 symposium, Santorum backed out of his commitment to come to Hillsdale.
The morning of Feb. 18, a Santorum staffer emailed Hillsdale Symposium members to expect an advance team. By that evening, Santorum was reported as having committed to an event at Hope College for Monday night, when he was supposed to be coming to Hillsdale.
Students said they were not really shocked.
“Campaigns and the strategies that accompany them are a series of judgement calls,” Willoughby said. “To be honest, I cannot say that if I was in Santorum’s shoes, I would not have done the same thing.”
The school did not release a press release immediately. Gaiser said seeing visiting families at church, staying in Hillsdale to hear the candidate, was difficult.
“I had to smile and nod because I couldn’t say, ‘No, he’s not coming.’ That was sad,” Gaiser said.
Round Two
Whalen said the administration did not give up on the event, but encouraged students to reschedule, making a reconverted effort to reach out to all candidates.
Monday morning, Feb. 20, Romney’s staff made a golden offer: he could come to Hillsdale on Friday, at 4 p.m.
The Constitutional Committee could not believe the offer.
“When I got the phone call that Romney was waiting for our acceptance of his offer to come, I was honestly shocked,” Willoughby said. “I immediately started looking for the strings attached. It seemed too good to be true.”
In fact, the Romney campaign did have a stipulation: he would have to be the only candidate to speak.
The college faced a conundrum.
Whalen said hosting a single candidate event at this late stage in the campaign would have two negative consequences.
“It looks like tacit endorsement or favoritism,” Whalen said. “And we can’t realistically host a series of candidates and events without seriously disrupting the campus, without interfering with our own essential work. It became a logical nightmare that became insuperable.”
Monday night, Whalen called the students in. It was time to pull the plug.
“There was a concerted attempt to reschedule the earlier, intended candidate forum and it simply did not work.”
The Take-Away
Every administrator working with the group said the student group’s efforts were praiseworthy.
“My hat is off to them,” Whalen said.
Given the timing of the planning, the students worked on campus virtually unaided by administrators. Before the end of the week, students had spoken with congressmen, governors, former attorneys general and more.
“We, a scraggly group of students from Nowheresville, Michigan had been so closely interacting with the potential leaders of the free world,” Willoughby said. “That really was phenomenal.”
