Baldwin, Alec

From GWUEncyc

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One of GW’s famous “attendees,” that is, a student who was enrolled at the university but didn’t graduate from it, was actor Alec Baldwin. He was a student here from 1976-79, studying political science and drama. As a junior, Alex (as he was known then), ran for President of the George Washington University Student Association (GWUSA). Baldwin was President of the Program Board during his time at the university and campaigned for student body president on a platform that declared GW had “one of the most pitiable public relations operations of any university in America…The University has never made a respectable effort at explaining what ‘Master Plan’ means; what the university budget surplus is all about; where your Marvin Center fee goes; what the role of the Board of Trustees is at GW.”

He went on to state that students did not wish to despise the administration, but that they needed to know what it was doing “with our money and our educations…We must assume that we are the top priority at this institution…entitled to investigate any aspect of university life which directly or indirectly affects us.” Baldwin wanted to transform the student body from a dispirit group of individuals into a “powerful political force whose presence will extend through Rice Hall and the entire GW community.”

In an letter to the editor in the Hatchet a month earlier, he was critical of GW being deficient in the quality of journalism and broadcasting education it offered at the time, and of the administration’s lax attitude in developing academic programs that should thrive in a Washington location. “When GW students come to Washington,” he contended, “they must discover the career-oriented opportunities available here on their own, with little aid from the Administration…Perhaps GW will open up an internship program with Century 21 Real Estate, because we know their interests in that area, don’t we?”

Baldwin’s ideas and rhetoric didn’t resonate strongly enough with his fellow students to generate the support he needed. The elections for GWUSA positions, held from February 27-March 1, 1979 and marked by a relatively small turnout, would end in controversy, with Baldwin right in the middle of it. Mike Karakostas, Vice President of the GW Hellenic Society, received 434 votes out of the 2,059 cast. Pete Aloe edged Baldwin for second place by a single vote, with 397 votes to Baldwin’s 396. Since none of the eight candidates on the ballot received at least 40% of the votes cast, the top two - Karakostas and Aloe - faced each other in a run-off election. Baldwin was present at a March 2 recount of the results, along with Karakostas and Aloe, but the numbers did not change, in fact he lost votes. Mike Endress, campaign manager for Pete Aloe, recalls that Baldwin's campaign slogan was originally "Your vote can make a difference," but was changed later to "One man can make a difference." The irony of that original slogan could not have been lost on Baldwin.

Following the election (which Aloe ended up winning in the run-off with Karakostas), a campaign worker for Baldwin insisted that election violations took place that led to Alec’s loss. The most serious allegations were against the Aloe campaign, and involved his supporters allegedly electioneering near polling stations inside Thurston Hall. They where accused of engaging in “lobbying activities to the detriment of Alex Baldwin.” Also, many of the poll workers had also been involved in the campaigns of the various candidates. This was described as a “blatant and pervasive conflict of interest,” and led to an influx of petitions alleging campaign violations and claims that the Elections Committee was derelict in its duties. A Hatchet editorial claimed that the election was “typically dirty, but so has been every other election ever held at GW. That was bad, but sadly enough, not earthshaking because it was expected to some extent.”

A major critic of Baldwin’s in the post-election tumult was Dana Dembrow, editor of the Law School’s newspaper the Advocate. He argued in a Hatchet letter to the editor that Baldwin was simply the weaker candidate and added that Baldwin’s overall management of the Program Board that year had been “woefully incompetent.” Dembrow maintained that Baldwin was just crying over “sour grapes” and asserted that none of the “regrettable but inevitable breaches of campaign ethics” that took place justified a new election. He went on to say that many students from the Law School did not vote for Baldwin. This was due in part, he explained, to the fact that the Program Board had placed no advertisements in the Advocate, and did not publicize their activities well on campus. Baldwin responded to this critique with a letter to the editor of his own, stating that Dembrow’s characterization of the violations being “trivial” and “technical,” a curious statement coming from a man “about to embark on a career in law; a career which one would hope is not punctuated by such a glib attitude toward regulation.”

As to the charge that the Program Board had not advertised in the Advocate, Baldwin said that the Hatchet was the university newspaper. He zinged: “…I am naïve to the code of snobbery so beautifully alluded to by Dembow which dictates that law students can only be reached through the law school paper and no other…It was not common knowledge at the Program Board that the law school is above reading the Hatchet, which is where we chose to advertise, as is our prerogative.”

Baldwin concluded by taking a jab at the indifference of graduate students in general, pointing out that there were positions in the Student Association and Program Board open to them. “Often, these positions are unfortunately filled by do-nothings whose inaction must inadvertently reflect negatively upon the organization and its leader. I further hope that new members of these organizations will do greater justice to their positions and those who put them there.” In effect, that was his parting salvo to GW.

Today, on his website, Baldwin claims that he had planned to attend law school, but decided later that year, on a dare, to audition for the New York University undergraduate drama program. He was accepted, and thus began what would become his professional training. Who knows if any of us would have ever heard of Alec Baldwin had he not played Al Gore to Mike Karakostas’ George W. Bush in the infamous GW student elections of 1979!

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: Hatchet, February 22, 1979
Author or Source: Hatchet, February 1, 22, 26, 1979; March 5, 8, 22, 1979; Mike Endress; Alec Baldwin web site[1]
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: February 8, 2007
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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