By Peter Onear

In Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness, Kurtz's dying words pretty much sum up what higher education expects will happen a month from now, when the midterm elections occur.

Many pro-education senators, representatives, and governors are expected to go down in defeat. If they do, a pro-education president will be severely wounded. Yes, indeed, "the horror, the horror."

Take my own metropolitan state university. Our high-ranking member of Congress faces a stiff, well-financed challenge for the first time in years. Our governor, who has been highly supportive of the university, is trailing his opponent by more than 10 points. And, after our friendly U.S. senator decided not to stand for re-election, neither of the candidates from either party campaigning to replace him knows much about our university.

So now, in the final days of the campaign, what should we do?

A prominent state senator took me aside during our opening home football game and advised: "Keep your head down during this election. Best thing for the university is not to do anything or say anything."

Nevertheless, if someone on the Titanic had had a cellphone, shouldn't that person make a few calls? OK, not the best example. But is lying low really the best strategy? Is it even minimally a safe strategy?

Of course, it probably isn't politically smart for the university president to hold a press conference endorsing the pro-education incumbent governor because of all that he has done for the university. The governor would love the endorsement and would certainly look even more kindly on us if he is re-elected. But it would be political suicide if his opponent, who has a substantial lead, was elected. Or would it?

Could my university president argue in that first awkward meeting with the new governor that he really wasn't supporting the former governor but rather endorsing the importance of the office in supporting higher education? Can a new governor-elect who has run a partisan campaign for 12 months suddenly assume the role of the superior, all-knowing lawgiver? Or will he just exact political revenge on the president and the university?

That's a dramatic example of the dilemma that university presidents, government-relations officers, and senior administrators face constantly. When do we decide to take a political stance? What might we gain? What might we be risking? There are some pre-election strategies that presidents and their administrators might consider before calling a press conference:

• Determine the prevailing opinion of members of your governing board. That's a tricky area because presidents often work hard to keep trustees out of the political arena. But trustees can be passionate and articulate advocates for higher education. If they decide to join the fray, it's hard to stop them, and you might as well ride their political wave.
• Band together with other presidents in your state. That gives you some cover and actually more clout. Just don't let your fellow presidents or administrators delay acting by forming a committee to study the issues.
• Survey political candidates for their views on higher education. The survey will be ignored, or it will be minimally filled out by a first-year law student working for the campaign. But it may demonstrate to the candidates that you are a serious and thoughtful person who wants to know their points of view.
• Work your local politicians and political bosses hard. This is where being keyed in to local politics can be important. Politely twist some arms, such as with that state senator from the football game. Say, "OK, I'll lie low, but when the new governor proposes cutting the university's subsidy by 20 percent, you'd better step forward and stop him." Trusting a politician to do the right thing after the fact is not foolproof, but it may work.

Of course, politicians during an election are more than willing to come to the university for all sorts of support, whether campaign donations or the free use of facilities. I, like my fellow government-relations officers, donate modestly but steadily, following the laws of the state and our university policies. But it's been pointed out to me by any number of candidates that few of my fellow administrators or faculty members contribute. I don't know how true that is, because I don't ask.

But beyond donations, politicians like to use campus facilities for campaign events. In a nice way, we cite university policy that prohibits purely political events inside campus buildings but allows such events to be held outside on university property. I know, it's a fine distinction. And neither we nor the candidates bring up the fact that then-candidate Barack Obama used our basketball arena a couple of years ago. (My claim, if challenged, would be that the arena has the largest seating capacity of any indoor venue within 50 miles. Besides, the campaign paid for the use of the facility. At least I think we got a check.)

This year the second of two gubernatorial television debates will be held in one of our lecture halls. This is somewhat of a coup for us, at least among my government-relations colleagues. But it's not all that great. For example, the two campaigns exactly divide the number of total tickets to give out to party faithful. We at the university will receive zero tickets. Even the president doesn't get one, which doesn't make him too unhappy, since the rules of the debate prohibit shots of the audience. Having the football team play on ESPN might help recruit athletes, but having a gubernatorial debate on the campus isn't going to help us recruit any political-science scholars.

Nevertheless, the election will soon be over. The yelling, the screaming, the political advertising. One party will go home and plot revenge; the other will start figuring out which campaign promises they won't be keeping. Meanwhile, my government-relations staff members, along with the president and senior administrators like the chief financial officer, will contemplate what might have been and murmur, "The horror, the horror."

Oh well, there's always the county commissioner election in the spring and, in truth,it may be more important to my university than any old governor's race..

Peter Onear is the pseudonym of a vice president for government relations at a university in the Midwest.