Coleman, Key get our nods

Editor's note: The Crimson White began endorsing candidates in this year's SGA elections on Thursday. The editorial board first addressed those candidates running unopposed. Today, the board will endorse candidates in the contested elections for vice president of Academic Affairs and vice president of External Affairs, and on Monday, the board will make its endorsement in the presidential race.

Only two SGA vice presidential offices, Academic Affairs and External Affairs, are contested this year. In sitting down with the candidates, we found all four of them - Brandon Clark, Aubrey Coleman, Mike Dodson and Kendra Key - to be knowledgeable and worthy of election to office. However, in an especially close decision, we have chosen to endorse Coleman for Academic Affairs and Key for External Affairs.

Coleman and Clark are squaring off in the race for vice president of Academic Affairs, and we were struck by the similarities in the candidates. They both wish to lessen the burden of textbook prices on students. Both of their textbook plans would involve a voluntary pledge by professors to use the same textbook for three years. They both want to restore free printing to all students. Coleman wants every student to have 300 print credits, while Clark favors 500 credits to undergrads and 700 credits to graduate students.

In this case, more is not necessarily better. We feel like Coleman's plan would be easier to implement and, therefore, more likely to become a reality. This subtle difference is enough to win our favor in a close decision. Our preference in this race is marginal, but enough to favor Coleman over Clark.

Dodson and Key are running for vice president of External Affairs. Dodson's platform is based on a simplistic acronym, HOME, which encompasses instilling a sense of campus history in freshmen, philanthropy in Tuscaloosa, a community Get on Board Day and an SEC SGA convention. Key plans to create a department of Foreign Affairs to assist in the transition of foreign students to the Capstone to go along with a lobbying campaign for the bill to remove sales taxes from textbooks.

Key, the Tuscaloosa native, gets our endorsement in this race. Dodson's SEC SGA convention, where SGA leaders from across the SEC would come together, is a showy event irrelevant in the lives of most students. Key's department of Foreign Affairs is a quality idea, albeit saddled with an uncommonly silly name.

These four candidates are ready for office, but Coleman and Key are the better choices.