Between campaign schedules, public appearances and political strategizing, candidates for the GUSA executive election are embracing the political lifestyle in the hope of drawing voters into their corner for the election on Thursday.

Khalil Hibri (SFS ’07) and his running mate Geoff Greene (SFS ’07) started out of the gate early with a kick-off rally last Wednesday, the first day of the official campaign period, and have maintained high visibility by staking out their territory in Red Square.

“We aren’t keeping anyone else out of there,” Hibri said yesterday. “We are just having this campaign and that’s where we’ve decided to be.”

Twister Murchison (SFS ’08) and Salik Ishtiaq (SFS ’07) delayed their kick-off relay until Monday, but Murchison said he did not see the later start as a disadvantage to his campaign.

“Everything that we have done, everything that we are doing, everything that we will do is all strategically thought out by our campaign staff,” he said last night. “The horse that often wins the Belmont is the one that waits for the turn to fire up its engines.”

With Hibri’s campaign dominating Red Square, Murchison has planted himself in front of O’Donovan Hall to greet students arriving to eat their meals.

“We really think the dining hall would be a better place,” he said. “We’re not ceding any ground.”

But the candidates haven’t kept their campaigns specified to one location on campus, and have ventured into residence halls to meet and greet students at home. Candidates call these “dorm-storming” efforts essential to conveying their message.

“The most effective and educational way is to meet people not in passing in Red Square but to actively seek them out in their homes,” Murchison said.

Candidate Gage Raley (COL ’07) said that he was initially apprehensive about meeting students in their rooms, but that he’s been pleased with the experience.

“I kind of was worried that going door to door, people would be peeved,” said Raley who is running with Oxana iliaeva (COL ’07). “All of it’s been positive so far.”

“It’s weird to knock on people’s doors,” Hibri said. “I’ve been surprised, they’ve been very, very receptive. But we’ve had some awkward situations.”

Murchison said he has more than once run into students wearing nothing more than a towel, and Hibri said that Greene once walked in on a student stepping out of the shower, But the technique remains a foundation for the three official campaigns.

In addition to the central strategies of dorm-storming and public hand-shaking, each candidate has shown off his own individual style with a personal innovation. For Raley, the banner in Red Square is a matter of personal pride.

“The banner was a really big project,” he said. “It’s definitely the centerpiece of the campaign, it looks really nice.”

Murchison touted his newly-unveiled campaign Web site, “GUSA With a Twist,” which his roommate designed.

“It’s unusually sexy for this sort of thing,” urchison said of the site during a dorm-storm yesterday.

Raley, a transfer student who admits that he is running as an underdog, said that he is not planning to focus his campaign on glamour.

“Our best chance to catch up to Khalil and Twister is to focus on issues, not charisma,” he said. “It really seems like that’s the focus of the other campaigns: Vote for us because we’re popular.”

Murchison said that his campaign is very much built around issues, as well as process.

“We wouldn’t be proposing these ideas unless we thought they would be feasible,” he said. “It’s all about who knows how best to implement these ideas.”

Hibri, too, said that his campaign is heavily oriented around change, which he said was one of the things that most impresses potential voters about his platform.

“Basically our platform is things that are needed,” he said. “But also talk about how to get them done.”

All of the candidates said that the pace of the campaign schedules they have followed has been frenetic and all-consuming.

“The first few days of the campaign, I didn’t go to bed until six in the morning,” Murchison said. “Health is not a concern right now.”

“The campaign’s taking all of my time,” said Hibri, who added that he has only gotten four hours of sleep in the past few days.

“It’s really been time consuming,” said Raley. “But I’ve been really enjoying it.”