In mayoral candidate Justin Leto's apartment, a headline on a news magazine read "the boy who would be mayor."

Leto would be, if he had not lost last night's election.

The news magazine still hangs on the bulletin board in Leto's apartment, which doubled as Student Party headquarters last night, with articles about riot prevention and the State College Borough Council race — across from a helium balloon shaped like a beer mug. It still hangs on, just like the hopes of the Student Party, even though it secured no wins this election.

Borough council candidates Brian Hoskins (senior-political science) and Chris Chambers (sophomore-finance) came by the headquarters with grim reports of low-voter turnout.

"This is just my life, doing things all the time," Chambers said. He said he will wait and see where God takes him after the election.

Although it didn't win any seats, the Student Party has been successful in other ways, Leto said.

"The idea has been a success; we have a number of achievements," Leto said. "And we have represented the students' views."

Although the party's candidates were not elected to directly represent those interests, Leto hopes the number of votes they did get will get the party leverage with the local government.

"We hope to take the number of votes we get to the person who wins and say 'here's who we're representing,' " Leto said.

Leto wants the local government to realize the students are members of a serious party that is not going to go away because it lost this election.

The Student Party is getting ready for 2003, and taking Election 2001 as a lesson plan for the future.

Out on the coffee table was a five-page lesson plan for the future, outlining the achievements, mistakes and problems the Student Party encountered when putting together the first student-run party to make it past the primary elections and onto the ballot yesterday.

Some lessons learned? Get voters. And get them early.

Leto said the Student Party applied to the Pennsylvania Department of State for 10,000 voter registration cards and planned on sending the cards to all students on campus. But the Student Party only received 2,000.

The Student Party was the first student party to reach the November elections, although attempts had been made in the past by student parties such as the "Keg Party" in 1999.

"This is a unique situation," Leto said. "State College is the only place where a student can run and even have a chance at winning."

Hoskins said schoolwork is not the only difficulty for the full-time student running for office but money and human resources also was a problem.

In the Student Party's headquarters, some election hopes might have been lost last night, but hope still hung on the walls.

"You have to risk losing when you get involved in politics," Leto said.