Find below five stories regarding campus politics, and the lessons that we should draw from them:

1) Toward the end of last year, Omar Shakir, the extraordinarily competent ASSU advocacy chair, called together the leaders of several campus groups interested in registering students to vote. We discussed setting up tables in White Plaza, distributing forms to incoming students, knocking on doors, setting up awareness events and election-night festivities. It seemed like our plan was ready to go when the president of the Stanford College Republicans said that he didn’t want to be involved.

“We’re keeping our options open for the fall,” he explained.

We decided to go on anyway. Over the summer, Omar and I were hashing out what would go on the voter registration instruction form. At the end of an e-mail, half-joking, I pointed out that Omar had only listed ASSU advocacy and Stanford in Government as the contacts, leaving out the Democrats. He wrote back and explained that he didn’t want the letter to seem like it was a partisan effort.

2) I got an e-mail two weeks ago from the Stanford Speakers Bureau, asking if the Stanford Democrats would be able to pitch in for the honorarium if they were able to get Howard Dean to come speak on campus before the election.

I had to e-mail back and tell him that we didn’t get any student government funding, so probably not. I talked to the SCR president a few days later and asked if he thought political groups should have the same access to campus funding other groups have for bringing speakers to campus.

He said the Republicans weren’t planning on applying for funding since they could get their money elsewhere, and that he thought it was a bad idea for the ASSU to fund Democrats’ events but not Republicans’.

3) The next week, my friend Claire Adida was organizing a political forum for new LGBT freshmen. She e-mailed leaders from the Green, Democratic and Republican groups on campus to see if they’d be interested in showing up to talk about political issues facing queer students and opportunities to get involved.

However, the next time I ran into her, she said she might have to cancel it since the Republicans hadn’t written back, and she wasn’t completely comfortable having a partisan forum.

4) A couple days later, I was turning in a form to David, the extraordinarily beleaguered guy who handles room reservations in Tresidder.

“More rooms for the Democrats, Kai?” he asked. “I’ll have to see about this. You know the Republicans haven’t even come by and asked for anything yet.”

5) Al Franken was once challenged when he called George Bush a liar: “Don’t you think that’s a little bit harsh?”

“Well I would,” Al Franken replied, “if Bush wasn’t, you know, a liar. Like he tells lies.”

As an example, Franken cites the Bush statement in February 2000 that “By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum.”

That’s not true, because only 30 percent of the tax cuts go to the bottom 80 percent of the spectrum. Eighty percent is more than the bottom end, and 30 percent is less than the vast majority. When you say something that you know isn’t true, that’s a lie.

Each story has its own logic: 1) If lots of students vote, Republican candidates will do worse; 2) Republicans get paid as much as $25 by the party for every student they register — compared to the Democrats’ $0 — so it’s easier for them to fund their campus events; 3) The Republicans won’t get many recruits at a meeting for queer students because their platform for them is lacking; 4) The Republicans just aren’t as numerous or active on campus, so they don’t need as many rooms; 5) And finally, both Al Gore and Bush made statements on how the benefits of Bush’s tax plan would be distributed, but only Gore’s statement was true.

In each case, people were trying to be balanced. You give the same sponsorship rights, the same funding, the same access and the same facilities to each political group. When two candidates disagree, it’s “controversial” — you don’t proclaim one right and the other one wrong.

In each case, better than “balanced” would be “fair.” Fairness — as Republicans will be the first to remind us — is about equal opportunities, not equal outcomes. If all parties are offered a spot at LGBT events but one party’s choices make its recruitment efforts less successful, the responsibility lies with that party alone. A fair policy would offer equal coalition membership, funding, speaking opportunities and facilities to all groups. If only one party takes advantage of those opportunities, so be it.

Kai Stinchcombe is president of the Stanford Democrats.