A City Council student candidate bumped out of the race in the primary elections has managed to avoid contact with Madison press and voters.

Tim Corver, the student District 5 mystery candidate, collected the required number of signatures to become eligible for candidacy and then refused to return dozens of phone calls from many Madison media outlets and declined a debate request by the League of Women Voters.

He refused to offer any explanation for his behavior and ran upstairs to hide from reporters for The Badger Herald who visited when they learned he was in District 8 candidate Matt Berry’s living room Tuesday afternoon.

Corver told the Herald, through Berry, that he would “explain everything on April 2” when the general elections are over.

“I have to stay the course,” Corver said, according to Berry.

Berry said he could only speculate why Corver refuses to campaign or respond to the media.

“He’s a decent individual, but he’s funny like that,” Berry said, guessing Corver’s shyness led him to shun all contact with the outside world. “But I can’t get inside his head, I’ve asked him and he won’t say why.”

Corver, Berry and City Council candidates Karl Jablonowski and Pat Richter signed a pledge to run together to correct council inefficiencies, including the time spent on a resolution against a war on Iraq and the prohibition of idling cars for more than five minutes.

Berry, who was eliminated from the District 8 race Tuesday, said the four candidates pool non-monetary campaign resources, such as volunteers for their campaigns.

The other District 5 candidates were not approached to sign the pledge and have never met Corver.

Candidate Robbie Webber said she is bewildered by Corver’s actions.

“I want to know where he is, why he bothered to run and why he won’t at least answer questions,” Webber said. “It’s a little odd — we don’t know anything about him.”

The lack of information about Corver has led Ald. Tom Powell, District 5, to construct theories explaining the candidate’s behavior. Powell said Corver might be associated with College Democrats and have entered to create a three-person race and force a primary in the district before he knew Powell would not run again. He said a primary would allow District 5 candidate Jason Stephany to better publicize his name before the general election, a tactic Stephany denies is part of his campaign strategy.

“It’s an old-school strategy that benefits the challenger against the incumbent if there is a primary,” Powell said. “I suspect he has some sort of ties with the College Democrats.”

Stephany is state chair of the College Democrats, but he said he has never met Corver and had nothing to do with his entrance in the race. He said he suspected Corver did not realize the extent of work needed to run a campaign.

“Younger people think it might be fun to run for an office and then realize the intense amount of work involved,” Stephany said. “But I’ve never seen it happen to this degree.”

Berry said Stephany and Corver have never met each other and said he highly doubted any connection between them.

“I assure you that’s not the case,” Berry said. “Part of Corver’s platform is not being associated with any parties.”