After four years at NIU, one starts to get tired of this whole Student Association garbage and wonder why the group even exists—other than being a supposed resume garnish for some young lawyer hopefuls or to provide some radical college idealists with an impossible challenge.

And like a recurring nightmare, it’s all happening again. But the latest nightmare has a slightly different twist. It’s kind of like that dream everyone has from time to time where you’re falling off a cliff and you wake up just before impact. Except this time you’re not waking up and your body splats against the rocks below.

The SA executive elections are next week and nobody even realizes there’s going to be an election, let alone know who’s running.

The latest word, which was about a month ago, was that Senate Speaker Preston Came was running against Sen. Kelly Marie McDonald for the presidency.

Oh, and Advertising Director John Quilico is running for vice president or treasurer or something. Well, it doesn’t really matter. Without competition Quilico can’t lose as long as at least he and Came vote.

So, what do we know about Came and McDonald, who have visions of leading the student body down the road of salvation next year just as all of their predecessors had?

If either one of them had been putting any kind of effort toward maybe winning the election, students could at least have some kind of answer.

Instead, all anyone has to work with is word of mouth or following what the candidates have done on committees or in SA meetings.

All that can really be surmised from that is both seem hard working. But Came hasn’t proven to be aggressive enough and McDonald has been so outspoken that people wonder if she’s just fighting a human interest crusade.

At least in past elections, one could be pretty sure about where the candidates were coming from. Last year at this time, Rob McCormack gave the impression of being a nice guy who really did want to clean things up a bit.

Opponent John Fallon was a nice guy too—but only long enough so he could brag to the next person that his act worked—getting another one in his hip pocket. In actuality, the only thing in his hip pocket was an I.D. that read “minor” in red letters.

Before them there was Huda Scheidelman who beat former Senate Speaker Phill Buoscio for the presidency. Ah, Huda. What more needs to be said about everyone’s favorite presidential goddess?

She had it won. All Buoscio had to do was fashion himself as the only Greek candidate in a desperate attempt to get Greek Row to the polls. Of course the following year, he metamorphosed into Fallon and ran again.

And the list goes on.

As kooky and ill-focused as these people were, however, at least they did work to get people out to the polls and vote. Students were able to learn something about who they were. Perhaps they voted for a lesser of two evils, but they had something to base a decision on.

Sure, there are people on the SA who contribute more than their share and spend hours upon hours trying to get things done.

But when those who want to be the top dog can’t even run a flier campaign, it makes you wonder if it’s all worth it.