Clarification, retraction to follow Weinstein '09's endorsement

Correction appended

At a closed meeting last night, the USG Senate deemed that president Josh Weinstein ’09’s Friday e-mail endorsing Michael Weinberg ’11 for vice president contained misleading and false statements.

The Senate had not decided how to treat the impact of these statements on the results of the election between Weinberg and Nick DiBerardino ’11, current vice president Mike Wang ’10 said in an interview after the meeting.

“The Senate has left the decision of what to do with the current VP election to [senior elections manager Braeden Kepner-Kraus ’10], who we appointed last year as an independent, impartial arbiter,” Wang said.

Kepner-Kraus will decide the course of action over the next few days in conjunction with the two VP candidates to “find a solution amenable to both,” Wang said, adding that usually two-thirds of the ballots are cast in the first 24 hours of a USG election.

Weinstein’s original e-mail indicated that unopposed USG presidential candidate Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 supports Weinberg for vice president.

“Connor initially asked Mike to be on a ticket with him, but has decided to remain impartial, publicly, because he is unopposed,” Weinstein wrote in the e-mail, sent Friday at 1 a.m. to a list of mostly individuals to whom he sent his own campaign e-mail last year.

Diemand-Yauman, however, noted in a statement early Friday morning that “Josh’s e-mail was sent without my consultation or my approval. To be clear — I do not endorse Mike Weinberg.”

Weinstein sent a clarification e-mail Sunday at the request of Kepner-Kraus, who said he received at least eight complaints about Weinstein’s initial e-mail.

“I'd like to apologize for implying that, because Connor asked Mike to be on a ticket with him, that he supports him in the Vice Presidential race — Connor is impartial,” Weinstein said in an the second e-mail, sent Sunday morning to the recipients of his initial e-mail. The retraction e-mail also included an endorsement of Weinberg.

During a closed executive session of its Senate meeting, the USG deemed Weinstein’s retraction e-mail unsatisfactory. As a result, two further e-mails will be sent to rectify the situation: the first will be sent to the student body with a clarification of Diemand-Yauman’s position and a retraction of misleading statements. Weinstein will send a similar e-mail to the recipients of his Friday e-mail.

"Unfortunately, I feel that Weinstein's e-mail did not adequately clarify the misleading comments in his initial statement," Diemand-Yauman said in an interview before the meeting.

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Diemand-Yauman was invited to the Senate meeting to give his testimony on the validity of Weinstein’s e-mail. He said at the meeting before it went into closed session that he was concerned that while the first e-mail insinuated that he was not impartial privately, the second e-mail was not a full retraction or correction.

Diemand-Yauman, the current Class of 2010 president, said at last night’s USG meeting that Weinstein’s apology e-mail came across as “vague, indirect and borderline sarcastic.”

“This apology is essentially worthless because he is trying to justify his implication,” Diemand-Yauman said. “It’s analogous to someone saying ‘I apologize that I am implying because you are drinking in the morning, afternoon and evening — you are an alcoholic.’ ”

He said he made the decision not to run on a ticket more than a month ago, before he knew he was running unopposed.

“Yes, over the summer … I did [ask Weinberg to be on the same ticket],” Diemand-Yauman said. “But over a month ago after talking with administrators and other people on the USG, I realized that it was no good to run on the same ticket.”

“I thought it was inappropriate because I don’t want to force my opinions on the student body,” Diemand-Yauman added. “I want the students to decide for themselves.”

Weinstein said in an interview after the meeting that his initial statement regarding Diemand-Yauman’s intentions was based on a conversation he had had with him a few months ago.

In an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian late Friday morning, Weinberg said that he and Diemand-Yauman discussed the possibility of a joint campaign, but that after Diemand-Yauman “had several discussions with people from ODUS and USG members, he decided that running on a ticket would not be best.”

Weinberg said that though he knew Weinstein had planned an endorsement, he did not know when it would happen.

Looking forward

After meeting with Diemand-Yauman and U-Council chair Maria Salciccioli ’09 on Saturday to address their complaints about Weinstein’s e-mail, Kepner-Kraus asked Weinstein to issue a retraction of “all the facts that led up to Connor’s rejection.” Kepner-Kraus read and approved a draft of Weinstein’s apology.

At the end of what many described as a “tense” three-hour meeting, however, the Senate voted to overturn Kepner-Kraus’s decision to allow Weinstein’s retraction, deciding that additional e-mails would be necessary. The upcoming e-mails will be written by Weinstein, Kepner-Kraus and Diemand-Yauman, Wang said in an interview after the meeting.

Weinstein expressed regret for the confusion his initial e-mail had caused. “I definitely didn’t want to give the impression I was lying to the student body,” he said in an interview after the meeting.

“What Weinstein did was stupid but not malicious,” USG senator Cole Morris ’10 said. “It would be absurd for this small misstep to dismantle his reputation and his legacy.”

Diemand-Yauman said, "All I wanted from the beginning was a fair and honest election. It's disheartening to see how out of hand all of this has gotten.”

Weinberg said he was satisfied with the Senate’s decision. “I’m glad the facts are coming out,” he said after the meeting. “I’m still eligible to be in the election, and I’m hoping for the best.”

“I’m glad the situation is finally clarified,” DiBerardino added. “It’s just unfortunate that it wasn’t clarified sooner.”

Continued endorsements

In addition to the e-mail containing an apology, Weinstein also sent an e-mail four minutes later to a separate list stating his endorsement of Weinberg. The e-mails were identical except for the apology.

Weinstein did not inform Kepner-Kraus or the members of the Senate that he had sent the second e-mail, but Kepner-Kraus said when informed of its existence that he didn’t think this was problematic.

“As long as he didn’t repeat the text of the e-mail about Connor in any way then he was within his rights to do that,” Kepner-Kraus explained.

– Staff writer Samantha Pergadia contributed reporting to this story

Correction: The previous version of this article stated that Weinstein had sent his endorsement email to about 1,100 individuals. In fact, Weinstein declined to comment on how many people were on the list.