A look at USU Student Body Presidential Candidates
“That was my first debate,” said Steve Palmer, an Associated Students of Utah State University presidential candidate, Monday. Palmer, in a green suit, smiled and chatted about his performance with yellow-caped supporters.
Palmer said the bright yellow capes with a large blue palm worn by his supporters were warmer than T-shirts and got people’s attention.
“They may be a little bold, but they add variety to the campaign,” he said.
He also added variety to his campaign by enlisting bagpipe players to attract attention on campus and sending out a car painted blue and yellow with the characteristic palm.
Palmer said he wished the whole campaign could be about the issues like the debates are. However, he said, “It’s stand out or die.”
Even though it’s “stand out or die” Palmer and Leavitt took a few moments to talk after the debate. Both Leavitt and Palmer said they were good friends and enjoyed working with each other.
Despite the good relations between the candidates, Palmer said he feels he is the most qualified.
“I think I’m the most experienced of any other candidate. I honestly do,” Palmer said.
Palmer served as ASUSU Extension Vice President last year and was the Latter-day Saint Student Association Recruitment Vice President, Business Council Executive Vice President, Student Activity Board chair, Ombudsman Committee and the Special Olympic chair (Olympic Town). Beyond his student government experience, Palmer is also a guitar player. He works at KSM guitars in Logan and plays in a band called the Blue Kilts.
Palmer explained his qualifications to students in person as he went door-to-door. He lost the jacket and loaded up on yellow flyers. He carried a notebook with him and had a blue pen stuck behind his ear. As he talked with people who let him into their apartments, he took down names and recorded comments they gave him. He also had suggestion boxes put up around campus. He said he would take these comments with him into office so that he could address the needs of the students.
“Too often, one person prepares a bill and 20 people vote on it,” Palmer said. “They make a decision for over 20,000 students.”
Part of Palmer’s platform is to improve communication between individual students and their ASUSU representatives. He said he would like to implement an ASUSU student advisory board, the members of which would be chosen from all the clubs and organizations at USU. He said he feels it would greatly improve the communication between the ASUSU Executive Council and the students.
He said he would also like to incorporate Extension students in the decision-making at USU by providing interactive forums. Extension students would be able to communicate via satellite with groups while they discussed pertinent issues. Palmer said it’s technically feasible, it just needs to be decided upon.
Palmer doesn’t just want to transport a message to extension students, he also wants to transport a message to Cache Valley. One would be via satellite and the other would be via an “A” on the mountain.
Palmer said the money is available to do it, all that’s left is to work closely with the local government for permission for the project.
The platform was the main focus as Palmer explained to students in their apartments why he should be the new ASUSU president.
“I think this is how elections are won, by meeting people, not throwing flyers at them,” Palmer said.
However, Palmer gave all the credit to his friends that helped campaign for him. He called caped individuals by name and thanked them for working with him. He said some of them he’d just met a few days ago.
“I’ve got the best workers on my campaign. There are about 50 to 70 people who have just given their all to this campaign.”