After a campaign of mystery, former Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) presidential candidate Dan the Unicorn revealed himself at the byelection debate on March 19.
Nick Drain, a first-year political science student and a recently-elected Faculty of Public Affairs CUSA councillor, is the man behind the unicorn head, neon blue morph suit, hula skirt and fanny pack.
When Dan the Unicorn posters—which promised to introduce a Harambe Memorial Day and replace the Ghandi statue with a Ken Bone statue—were posted, a user from the Carleton Reddit community took a picture and it quickly went viral.
“That was the most upvoted post ever in the Carleton Reddit community,” Drain said.
One Reddit user offered to create a GoFundMe page to back Dan the Unicorn’s campaign, while others declared their love and said he was the candidate they needed, Drain said.
“The only backlash I got was some guy on Reddit saying, ‘oh, his memes are too old,’ ” he said.
Before the unicorn became an official candidate, Drain said he was able to gather 160 nomination signatures in three hours without much talking. “Unicorn seeking nomination for CUSA presidency,” his name tag read.
“For me, anonymity was a huge part of it, because there was a big mystery of ‘who’s behind the unicorn?’ Throughout the entire nomination period, no one knew,” Drain said.
The name ‘Dan,’ which was the name registered on the official candidate list with the Elections Office (who was sworn to secrecy) comes from Drain’s middle name, Daniel. He said a “loose” name change policy in the Electoral Code meant he could go under that name until appearing on the ballot, where he would be known as “Dan (the Unicorn) Drain” and ultimately have his surname revealed.
He added that taking selfies and dancing with students and candidates was carefree behind the mask.
But, while the unicorn and its campaign promises were ridiculous, Drain said the goals behind it were serious. He said he wanted to combat voter apathy by bringing attention to the byelection.
“We only have 40 per cent of our student population that votes, meanwhile we have like another 60 [per cent] that doesn’t vote,” Drain explained. “So really, the entire campaign was trying to appeal to the 60 [per cent] that didn’t vote rather than the 40 [per cent] that did, and I think had I stayed in that’s where a lot of my votes would have come from.”
He added that he wanted to promote electoral reform too.
“The fact that I was able to enter as a unicorn kind of pushed that point across a little,” Drain said.
According to him, he dropped out as a candidate on March 14 due to a conflict of interest, since he had just been elected as a CUSA councillor for the 2018-19 year.
“In the Electoral Code, it says nothing about the fact that you can’t hold a seat on council or as an [elected] executive and run for another position . . . However, in the CUSA bylaws, which was not noticed by the electoral officials until after they had already approved me as an official candidate, they then noticed on the first day of campaigning that I was no longer eligible or that I shouldn’t have been eligible, so that was kind of on the Elections Office a bit,” he said.
Drain said due to the mix up, he is being reimbursed about $160 to cover the full cost of campaign posters he had already paid for. He added that Dan the Unicorn could have continued to pursue the CUSA presidency, but it would have meant giving up his council seat, which he didn’t want to do.
“The whole point of Dan the Unicorn was no political agenda. It was just jokes,” Drain said.
Photo by Graham Swaney
