By the first week of March, campus will become a wasteland of soggy campaign fliers and unbelievably persistent student candidates. Chances are that — like last year’s election — few will step up for the open positions and all of those who do are already involved in the bureaucratic bog of campus politics.

What’s worse is that nearly all of these people are in an extensive network of the Student Association clique — a group that, for all of their improvements, are still perpetuating the petty insider-ism that so often plagues legitimate governments. And though the SA’s election board announces the open seats every year, the races, if they are even contested at all, rarely draw the attention of the average student.

Campus is in the middle of a two-week window in which the election is open to any willing student. Blink and you might miss it, and the race will descend into the muddy disaster it was last year.

Two of the election’s six positions were uncontested, and the other candidates seemed to spend more time piling grievances on each other than talking to students about their platforms. The battle for president between David Bass and Dave Belsky reached a crescendo with sexual blackmail, where tears and soundbites were shed and both candidates lost face.

Bass, a former e-board member himself, was championed by many as an SA-outsider. He (twice) defeated Belsky, the long-time king of the SA’s social court, on a platform of change and image reform (though the jury is out on any concrete results).

But what is more troubling is that this year’s election is shaping up to be a huge letdown.

From our basement office we’ve heard whispers and rumors of candidates “convincing” their would-be competitors to drop out or seek another position for a race that has yet to even begin.

Not only does a one-man race make for dull headlines, but it makes for a poor race and a poorer outcome.

Last year’s student government election suggested that the only talented and capable leaders already worked in the SA office, and we fear that it may end up the same way this semester. A healthy field of contenders in any contest prevents tyranny, but if (as we fear) the demagoguery of some members of the SA are weeding out their competitors, the student body’s chance to make an informed decision is undermined, and ultimately, so are their interests.