Don't know why the bard hate is on the polls, damage wise with inspire courage and heroics later, they can dish it out and hit much more reliably than most of the core classes presented. Not to mention their usefulness outside of combat with skills, songs, spells, and jack of all trades focus. Their issue is really stamina though, so I suppose if campaigns all ran at the 4 encounters per day, they'd have it a little rougher.
I voted paladin myself, smite evil is fairly limited despite how you can shine with it with some work, and the mount thing is problematic for dungeon crawls.
Also, Paladin Code can easily turn out to be a player's nightmare from strict DMs.
Finally, bards have an easier time having fun... Same for all the other classes, and without fun, you're useless at a gaming table.