The candidates for student body president presented their platforms to the senate during the General Student Senate meeting on Tuesday. The first thing I thought as I read the agenda was, who are the candidates?

Frankly, I didn't get my answer from the Senate, or even most of the candidates in their speeches. This wasn't for lack of trying on my part; I went through the basic channels any student would think to go through. I went to the Student Government Web sites. They have two of them, and it isn't very clear which one they actually update, but there isn't a list of candidates on either one. Nor is there a list in any of their FirstClass folders. In the end, I got the names of the candidates after their speeches from another reporter.

The first presidential candidate to speak was Sen. Owen McCarthy, and from the way he addressed the senate, he was friends with many of the people there. His speech was informal, and mainly consisted of two buzzwords that have been plaguing the senate for the past couple of weeks: public transportation and library hours. He wants to institute a shuttle service from campus to downtown and Orchard Trails, running every half hour. I'm not quite sure how he plans to make this happen, but he really, really wants it. He also argued that library hours need to be extended earlier so students can print things for their 8 a.m. classes. He failed to mention the only people who could run the library that early are other students.

The next candidate was Sen. Robert Goodwin. He's a new senator, compared to the rest of the senate, because he's only been there for a year. This made him sound more estranged from the people he was trying to reach out to than McCarthy. The planks of his platform didn't help him out any either, since it consisted mainly of reforming Student Government's image. That which wasn't based on reform was based on changing library hours.

These first two candidates sounded remarkably alike in their delivery. I was busy trying to pick apart slight differences in the short amount of time before the last candidate stood up to speak.

However, the moment he stood up, his charisma pretty much put the other two candidates out of the running for me. Gimbala Sankare was the only presidential candidate who opened with his name and qualifications, the only one with a prepared speech, and the only candidate who was even remotely worth paying attention to.

He's gone through some of the worst things a student can when his application for financial aid was rejected. Instead of abandoning school, he went into debt so he could continue helping the students he represented as the president of the Class of 2010. Unlike the other candidates, he seems to genuinely care about the issues that directly affect the student body. Best of all, he didn't mention library hours once.

So there are your candidates for student body president, as I saw them, presenting their platforms to the Senate. The candidates will debate in the FFA Room of Memorial Union on Monday, Nov. 24. They will be taking questions from students. Election day is Dec. 1, so save the date.

Article Tools