ANAHEIM : Cashiered Candidate Planning Comeback

A week after being disqualified as a candidate for Canyon High School student body president because he distributed condoms to classmates along with his campaign literature, Patrick Lee is determined to make a political comeback.

Lee, 17, of Anaheim Hills, said Saturday that he will run for senior class president in this month’s school elections.

Ray Dunne, Canyon assistant principal, confirmed that Lee is eligible to run for the office and said that the junior has already put his name on a candidates sign-up list. Class elections are held separately from the student body elections.

Lee was kicked off the ballot for student body president last week after he passed out about 100 condoms, along with a flyer saying that a vote for him was a “safe” vote. School officials said Lee violated an election oath he and the other candidates made to run their campaigns in a tasteful and appropriate manner.

While he decried the punishment as too extreme, Lee said he won’t use condoms in his upcoming campaign.

“I’m going to be more conservative but just as creative this time,” Lee said. “I have to go back to the Puritan days, according to my school.”

Lee said the one-day condom handout was not in poor taste because Canyon High School presented an assembly about safe sex and contraception just a month earlier.

“I thought it was a brand new idea, and the school just stopped it,” he said.

Perhaps the controversy did have a positive side for Lee. He admits that all the publicity made him more popular around campus--and perhaps more electable.

“Most people at school know me now,” Lee said. “I may run a more basic campaign this time and just hand out candy.”