The District 8 race between first-time candidates Jeff Erlanger and Austin King fails to yield a clear favorite. On the whole, we felt thoroughly disenchanted with both candidates’ efforts to campaign on student issues in this almost exclusively student district.

King’s line throughout the race is consistent with his Progressive Dane roots: a hyper-regulatory agenda promoting $3 increases in the minimum wage, government regulation of security deposits that smack of Big Brother, and soft rebuttals to the city’s anti-drinking establishment that border on compliance. Beyond policy, however, King has consistently displayed a wanton disregard for the aspiring politician’s most necessary trait: civility.

Erlanger, on the contrary, is to be commended for running a professional campaign — perhaps too professional. With money pouring in from all sides and several paid staffers, we were left wondering just who it is that might be behind the candidacy of Jeff Erlanger. His rather unrealistic policy positions stand largely in line with King’s — each vying for the tag of a true “progressive” with goals inconsistent with Madison’s economic and political realities. We were searching for a voice that would come from the ranks of the everyday student; instead we’re left with the products the downtown political scene produces all too frequently: those on the fringe, for whom results are a secondary consideration.