Today and tomorrow are the Student Union Elections. I had no idea who to vote for, so I've been reading up on the candidates trying to make an informed decision. Tyler Tanner, Jon Morrison , Scott McIntyre, Loralee Edwards, and Paul Daniels are running for President; Matthew Sletto, Jason Rumer, and Gorm Hansen for VP Academic. Kelly Andres and Greg Imeson are running for VP Administration while Clay Campbell, Michael Smith, and Patricia Butt are running for VP Internal Affairs. My review of their profiles (as found in the student run newspaper The Meliorist.)

Running for President:
Tyler Tanner - From Taber, Alberta. One of the infamous Tanner crew, specifically of the "Mother Tanner's Sweet Taber Corn" line. Personally I would have left that detail out. He says some good things about the University and then toots his horn about what a great guy he is, but says little about why he would make a good president.

Jon Morrison - Management student. His reason for running is a personal interest in student issues. He fails to cite which issues he's interested in. He has little or no experience in politics. Also he didn't proof read his profile before submitting it, "I have developed a interest in student issues..." Do I really want someone so grammatically inept as my SU president?

Scott McIntyre - Unfortunately Scott has dropped out of the race. PoliSci student and likely would have been my first pick. Rumor has it he is not running for personal reasons.

Paul Daniels - The incumbent. His platform was based on what he has done and what he is going to do. So far so good, but his main points were that he has started to make the Zoo (the campus pub) a more welcoming environment, reviving Thursday night action there as well making the place non-smoking. He also added that ratified clubs need better funding and benefits. So if he's elected I suppose I should assume that more of my SU fees will be going to University Clubs. Maybe I would care if I was in one.

Loralee Edwards - A senior student, and given the choices probably the best choice, but I still haven't decided for sure.
Running for Vice President Academic:
Matthew Sletto - No bio submitted. I guess I know who I won't be voting for.

Jason Rumer - Jason has a lot of experience in the SU and other political organizations. His bio focused on past experience rather than plans for the future but his list of past experience was impressive.

Gorm Hansen - Gorm also has had a lot of previous experience. His bio was unfortunately quite short. He does, however, have something going for him (at least as far as my vote goes) in that someone I recently met from the SU, whom is graduating, said that if he were to pick, either Jason or Gorm would be good choices but that personally he would vote for Gorm.

Running for Vice President Administration:
Kelly Andres - Long bio and considering the opposition, she's my pick.
Greg Imeson - Why the hell would you run in a student union election and not submit a bio to the University's student newspaper? I guess we could ask Greg that question.

Running for Vice President Internal Affairs:
Clay Campbell - Currently Clay is the Vice President of University Hall, for the Organization of Residence Students. He is also the founder and two-year president of GALSO (more commonly known as GALIA). He goes on to say that University Clubs are very important [yadda yadda] and that if elected he will divert more funds to clubs. Seeing as he's the president of one of the clubs I'd have to say his bias on this topic shows through pretty clearly.

Michael Smith - I don't want to seem judgmental here, but when he listed one of his hobbies as pilates, I had to wonder exactly what type of guy mentions his hobby of a specific kind of exercise when campaigning in Student Union elections. I guess we could ask Mike that. Anyway he's currently the Vice President of GALIA and a treasurer of the board of directors at CKUL (the University's radio station). His platform revolves around his desire to encourage diversity. Hmmm.

Patricia Butt - Ok, my last hope Patricia Butt. I was actually put off of the idea of voting for Patricia due to the overusage of bad puns in her political advertisements around the school. Puns aside, reading her bio seemed like what I imagine the cover letter of an application to be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader would be like. Don't get me wrong it was actually a pretty well written piece, but it didn't seem to fit with someone concerned about Internal Affairs. I couldn't help but think that if she were handwriting this, she would have dotted her lower case "i's" and "j's" with little smiley faces. She sounds pretty sporty and had a nice picture to boot, but her platform revolved around what a fun person she is and her love of all things sporty and cute. In the end though, I'll probably end up voting for her.

The other positions didn't have enough interest so all running for those positions will be awarded victory by acclamation.