Go ahead and mock me, but I love this stuff. Photo by John-Morgan on Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons.

I love chalk. I love chalk hopscotch and chalk racetracks and crime-scene-style chalk outlines, but most of all, I love the way our entire campus is blanketed in a rainbow of chalk ASG campaign ads, or was until the rain washed it all away on Monday. You might trace this deep-seated love of mine to something more serious, like a full-fledged Peter Pan complex and a denial of adult responsibility, but I don’t really think so. I’m just happy that here and now — in a generation and campus that is often deemed apathetic — we can care about something enough to not leave a single sidewalk square blank.

In fact, this may actually be my favorite time of the year. I’m a bit capricious in my affections, and I generally declare this same statement about once a month, but it’s usually about the weather, not politics — something that rarely gets me too excited.

But thanks to the current campaign, my habitual long, late-night walks between North and South campus are no longer the dull treks they once were, with a myriad of multi-colored slogans along the way. And it’s not just the ads that make the annual ASG campaigns so great.

The sheer effort that candidates put behind their campaigns is impressive. Anyone who’s gone flyering or chalking knows that the work is nearly back-breaking and will leave you sore the next day. ASG hopefuls are undoubtedly busy assembling their massive campaign teams and securing the endorsements of many, yet all the while, they make time to go door-to-door just to talk to students.

I was in the student offices on the third floor of Norris last week when Bill Pulte stopped by just to chat, and the week before that, Muhammad Safdari, running unopposed for Academic Chair, stopped by my room in Allison. Though he was just asking for signatures in order to acquire the 200 needed to run, he stayed to talk for 20 minutes, discussing his platform and the possibility of a student book exchange and enlightening me on just how one gets involved in the mystery that is ASG.

Usually, politics is something convoluted and abstract, something that is so distant and so filtered that it’s hard to trust at all. As excited I was about the 2008 presidential election, I don’t feel like my day-to-day life has been greatly affected. But campus elections, as silly as they may seem, really do make a difference. I love making fun of ASG as much as the next Impeach ASG-reading student, but in truth, I really do think the student government here does a lot of good work. I think off-campus housing evaluations and Saturday shuttles to Chicago are more than I could have expected from ASG in the last year (granted, I set the bar low). If anything, the student body should make better use of these.

What’s cool about a campus campaign is that you’ll more than likely not only shake hands with the candidates, but if you’re interested, you can discuss policy with them. Not many people get to do this with the real U.S. of A president. Of course, shuttles and CTECs aren’t of the same weight as public health policy or relations in the Middle East, and of course it’s impossible to know with any certainty the sincerity of anyone’s campaign — but you have to have a little bit of faith and perspective, put aside all the snide, uninformed remarks, and appreciate what ASG does do.

The good news is that it’s easy to vote for ASG. No registrations, no absentee ballots sent perilously through the postal service, no lines to wait in on election day. The people we elect have the potential to improve our day-to-day lives directly within the next year, and we should hold hold them up to these standards. In the meantime, enjoy the chalking and gratuitous conversations with soon-to-be campus politicians, and don’t forget to vote!