There’s a reason why Jack Abramoff and his lobbyist buddies in D.C. are regularly accused of bribery and other financial improprieties: Lobbying is all about the Benjamins. Advocacy without the power of the purse is about as effective as, well, student government.

Poor ASG. If only real influence came standard with a three-piece suit from Men’s Wearhouse.

I know many of the candidates for this year’s ASG elections, and they are among the brightest, most thoughtful and most accomplished students in this school. Mr. Schumacher’s platform, for instance, is an impressive list of initiatives the administration should seriously consider. But let’s be realistic: We can’t even make professors post CTECs.

Here’s what ASG can do: interior decorating. Leafing through old Daily’s, I was heartened to learn that student government took a crucial stand, forcefully and unequivocally ordering the immediate rearrangement of 15 left-handed desks in Harris 107. Way to stick it to the Man.

ASG is a pretend government. Why can’t this year’s candidates pretend a little harder? Many platforms vacillate between ill-fated idealism and downright silliness. Consider two issues:

n Co-curricular transcripts: Extracurricular activities reported on our academic transcripts? Super. Because that’s the first thing on my mind when I’m prancing around Shanley in a student production or singing jeng-joos with an a cappella group: Law School. It’s called a resume, people. It’s one page long, and it takes about an hour to type. In the countless hours ASG spends writing, debating, advocating and ultimately despairing in the administration’s rejection of this bill, our representatives could type a resume for every college student in the greater Chicago area and still have enough time left over to politely ask for more left-handed desks.

n ASG visibility: More transparency? Why? Do we really need to learn that the two-hour debate to end cloture on the motion to move to the previous subject to vote on the line-item addendum to the side-bar amendment to the bill to add lilac fresheners to the men’s bathrooms in Norris suddenly ended when the Senate body simultaneously fell asleep?

ASG is not a complete joke, but it could try being a little funnier. I was thrilled to hear my friend Josiah Jenkins would run a tongue-in-cheek campaign for academic vice president. His platform includes the construction of a dinosaur cloning facility on the Lakefill and the introduction of a home economics major in the economics department.

Student government doesn’t have power, and it’s unfortunate, because nobody knows what a college needs more than its students. But for now, the idea that ASG can accomplish anything of substance is pure science-fiction. In keeping with the genre, we might as well aim high and bring back the dinosaurs.

Derek Thompson is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached [email protected].