One is not the loneliest number in this year’s ASG elections. A single candidate is running for ASG President, and only one is up for Executive Vice President EVP.

Six people ran for president in last year’s hotly contested election. This year, ASG’s current EVP, Jay Schumacher, is it.

There’s no choice. Schumacher is going to be our next president. In a school full of overachievers and tools, how can only one person want such a high-profile job?

When I first learned Schumacher’s race was over before it began, I blamed ASG. But it’s not entirely ASG’s fault.

The process for getting on the ballot isn’t hard. Potential candidates have to fill out an information sheet and a consent form and then get 200-300 signatures on a petition. Nothing says only ASG insiders can run for president, and none of the normal ASG bureaucracy is involved. The person with the most votes wins, period.

I can’t believe nobody else at this school wants to be student body president. There must be a problem.

Is it the competition?

No one at NU would have beaten Schumacher. The heir apparent to the ASG throne knows everyone and is involved in what seems like everything.

But that shouldn’t have stopped anyone from running. Most people aren’t scarred for life by losing an election. Even losing candidates benefit from the process by having a week and a half to voice their platform to the public.

You can’t tell me there isn’t one person on this campus that has an issue they want publicized. It seems like there are at least five people bombarding me with flyers at The Rock every day. Couldn’t they make a bigger impact than giving us those annoying quarter sheets we immediately throw away?

There is also the faction of people who say ASG doesn’t do anything, so what’s the point of getting involved? I’m not going to get into a debate as to whether or not ASG does anything because it doesn’t matter. Who cares? Even if those people are right, what’s the downside of a job where you don’t have to do anything, but you have the ear of top-level NU administrators?

Former ASG president Jane Lee was named one of Glamour’s Top 10 College Women in 2004, and it is doubtful she would have gotten that recognition without her presidency. Even the sleep deprivation and the fact that you have to wear a suit almost 24/7 shouldn’t eliminate all of the almost 6,000 students who didn’t run.

Because this election is a one-man show, ASG and Schumacher will probably be labeled a sham and a joke. It’s unfair to fault Schumacher for being the only candidate. It’s sort of unfair to fault ASG for only having one presidential candidate. It is fair to call out NU students and ask why.

But it isn’t too late to make an impact.

Someone needs to start a write-in campaign for a person not named Dickie Humps. Yes, Dickie defeated two legitimate presidential candidates last year, but he should quit on top (even though the real Dickie Humps has nothing to do with his own campaign). Whoever starts this campaign is no match for Schumacher, but a democratic election needs a token loser.

Campus Editor Abe Rakov is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].