Earlier this week, I e-mailed the five candidates for student body president and asked if they would consent to be interviewed. They all agreed, and I met with all five of them. I have five people to describe, then, and had better get started.

Let me begin with the man who has made the most signs: Adam Compton.

I was expecting Mr. Compton to be a tall, alpha-male sort of guy, but he was a pudgy, baby-faced little fellow and all smiles. I liked him very much. However, he was too much of a regular guy, in my opinion, to make a legitimate student body president. He did not strike me as a celebrity, and there was nothing extraordinary about him.

He is by far the most experienced candidate: he has served as a senator, and is the current student body treasurer. However, I do not believe in his plan to charter buses to downtown Raleigh on weekends. A chartered bus would cost about $500 an hour, and I don’t believe Student Government can swing that, even if local bars contribute, which they probably will not.

So much for Adam Compton. Let me move on to Josh Weeks.

I found Josh Weeks to be a big fellow, well-dressed and a thoroughly nice guy. However, he was, in my opinion, too mild to be a good student body president. There was a certain confidence lacking in him. In my opinion, a student body president should be a little bit cocky, and there was no cockiness about Josh Weeks.

He has never worked in SG because he has spent alternate semesters in a co-op position. He claimed he has gained a lot of valuable experience from his co-op, and no doubt he is right.

One goal he hopes to achieve, if elected, is to put course evaluations online. That way, students can get the lowdown on a professor before they take his or her class — look before they leap, so to speak. This is certainly a wonderful idea, but even if Weeks is elected, I’d say it has only a coin flip’s chance of coming to pass.

Let me next consider Kate Luckadoo. She is hot, first of all. Secondly, she has never served in SG: her credentials lie mostly in various leadership activities on campus. She is very active in the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics, and Public Service, and was the driving force behind the group’s recent trip to Guatemala. She has been an RA for two years, worked in New Student Orientation and is a participant in the Caldwell Program.

I judged her to be capable, street-smart and confident. It would be impossible to bully her; she would not stand for it.

Let me move on to Bobby Mills. Personality-wise, Mills is exactly what you would expect a student body president to be. He is nice, extroverted, easy-going and a little bit cocky. Yet I believe that he is good-hearted, too.

His credentials are superb. He is the current executive secretary of SG, and is also a prominent member of the North Carolina Association of Student Governments. He is on the Board of the Student Athletic Club and was the originator of the Big Four Food Drive, a combined food-raising effort among the four ACC schools of North Carolina.

In short, Bobby Mills has excellent credentials and a forceful, confident presence, and he has my vote.

Let me close with Mitch Danforth. He is tall and skinny, and was an incredibly nice guy, by far the nicest of the candidates. But he was a bit too nice. If he asked me to do something I didn’t want to do, I’d agree to do it, then back out without fear of repercussions.

He was also student body president of Enloe High School, from which he graduated in 2003. Enloe educates most of the overachievers in this area, so being president there is by no means an accomplishment. He is also active in SG at State: he is the director of the Hillsborough Street Commission.

He sums up his platform in the phrase “connection, education and communication.” The plank which most interested me was “education:” he wants to push for improved teaching quality at State. I don’t buy this, however. Most professors have their jobs because of their research abilities, and the University does not care how well they teach, so long as they publish on a regular basis.

To sum up: Compton, Weeks, and Danforth lack the necessary force of character: Luckadoo and Mills have plenty of character, but I have more confidence in Mills’ ability. Accordingly, I am voting for Mills.

But let me close in saying that all these people were nice, capable and worthy of respect, and I regret that I must say unfavorable things about them, because I liked them all.

E-mail Jeff at [email protected].