What, the duck?

John Serpe (Col class of ’80, Law class of ’83) was unsure who might run against him for Student Council president in the spring of 1979, but he was certain someone would.

A third-year history major who by his own admission was “not the world’s greatest undergrad student,” Serpe hardly looked unbeatable. He’d won election as vice president for appropriations the year before by a narrow margin, he recalls.

“I was thinking there were various people who might run against me,” he says.

No one did. No people, anyway. Serpe’s opponent was a Marvel comic book character called Howard the Duck, whose candidacy was hatched as a joke by students Bob Malinowski (Engr class of ’80) and Kevin Keefe (Col class of ’80). The campaign gained momentum, however, tapping into feelings of “growing cynicism and antipathy towards Student Council and student self-governance as a whole” according to a history of Student Council, written in 2018.

“I was surprised at how quickly people latched onto it,” Malinowski says, looking back.

Malinowski was even more surprised when Howard outpolled Serpe 1,743 to 1,668. 

But the fictional waterfowl was ineligible to serve. “Student government rules bar a duck or any other nonstudent from taking office,” the Daily Progress clarified, in case anyone was wondering. Serpe took office, embarrassed but determined not to take the loss personally, he says.

The anthropomorphized duck’s campaign was nothing personal, Malinowski says. It was a protest against student government in general, and “politicos” who put their own ambition over the interests of students, he says.

Malinowski had tried something similar when he was in high school, running a campaign for a fictional—if human—candidate, he says. Administrators discovered the ruse on the eve of the election, foiling his plan. 

Keefe, Malinowski’s roommate at UVA, was a big fan of Howard, a caustic, cigar-chomping cynic whose social satire made him something of a counterculture antihero. So Malinowski decided to try again. 

He and Keefe printed campaign posters and buttons. They set up a table on the Lawn and answered questions on behalf of their feathered candidate. The campaign’s slogan, “Why a Duck? Why not? We’ve had turkeys running student government for years,” was borrowed from a Marvel plotline in which Howard the Duck ran against Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford for U.S. president in 1976.

The Student Council elections committee first ruled that Howard’s votes would not be tabulated, but it reversed course after Malinowski and Keefe presented it with a petition signed by more than 800 students.

At the time, Serpe was critical of the decision to count Howard’s votes, telling the Cavalier Daily the committee had allowed the race to degenerate into a farce. All these years later, he confesses to being blindsided by the whole thing.

The comic “wasn’t something I’d ever really followed,” he says. “I was more of a Donald Duck guy or whatever.”

A successful trial lawyer based in Houston, Serpe can laugh about it now. He’s proud of the work he did as council president. He says he lobbied the General Assembly to get a student representative on the Board of Visitors, which came to pass in 1983. He also pushed back against a plan to build a residential college at Birdwood, a proposal that was unpopular with students.

“I didn’t want to lose to a duck,” he says. “But when all was said and done, I got to do what I wanted to do, and it was a great experience.”