Associated Student Government presidential candidate Jay Schumacher listens to Kelly Clarkson and the Backstreet Boys, but he’s not proud of it.

So when Schumacher heard that current president Patrick Keenan-Devlin shared this secret with THE DAILY, he chased the president and attacked him.

“The whole student body is going to know that!” he yelled between punches. “They’re going to think I’m a tool! That’s not the only genre I listen to. I like country!”

The moment of public slapstick was rare for Schumacher, who as executive vice president spends up to 40 hours each week wooing students and administrators to pass and implement legislation.

Now, as the only student on the ballot for president in Tuesday’s Associated Student Government elections, he is looking forward to working longer hours.

If elected, he said, ASG would be his only extracurricular activity. In the past, the Communication junior and Sigma Phi Epsilon member worked for several other organizations and events, from Interfraternity Council to New Student Week planning.

“One of my weaknesses was that I tried to do everything,” he said. “I didn’t sleep for nights and days sometimes. I look back and wonder why I felt the need to do that, and I think I had to learn from that experience, my inability to say ‘no.’ These are lessons that most students probably learn their freshman year, but it took me three years.”

Schumacher’s platform will give him plenty to do. His top three priorities are improving Counseling and Psychological Services so it can better help students, funding club sports and religious groups with ASG money and fostering student-created businesses on campus, he said.

“We need to prepare for the next generation, and student entrepreneurship is the way to do that,” he said, noting that Google was started at Stanford University. “It fills a void because we don’t have an undergraduate business program.”

Funding club sports and religious groups is important because ASG currently does not recognize their financial needs, he said. Last quarter, Schumacher helped author a bill allowing ASG to give money to every student group it recognizes, not just A-list groups.

Schumacher said he also wants to improve dorm security, provide campus-wide wireless Internet access and redesign the HereAndNow Web site. Showing off a prototype of the design on his laptop, he said he hopes to complete all of his target projects because many are works-in-progress.

“You can look back on my track record,” he said. “I’ve worked intricately on a lot of these projects.”

Schumacher’s campaign manager, Communication sophomore Becca Donaldson, credited his persuasiveness for his success.

“He’s one of the friendliest people I’ve met, which is why he has such a big support base,” she said.

Schumacher said that for him, NU is perfect, adding that he cried with happiness when he opened his acceptance packet three years ago.

“Here’s a campus of 8,000 of the brightest, most talented students,” he said.”Why wouldn’t you want to get involved?”

Reach Nitesh Srivastava at [email protected].