Congratulations Analiese Eicher. You’ve got the campus in your hands now.

Sure, you only won with 161 votes. And yes, you won the seat in one of the most apathetic districts from the most uninvolved supervisor in recent history. And yes, no one seems to care.

But you have a unique opportunity here — to remake campus in your vision. And it couldn’t come soon enough.

While the election of a College Democrat who cut her teeth on the easiest congressional campaign in the state of Wisconsin (and possibly one of the safest seats in America) might not seem to signal a sea change among our rather disconnected student body, it is possible. Not because it will swing us one way or the other on the political spectrum or because it will engage us in this issue or that, but because her actions can finally prove that students have a clear idea of what they want government to look like.

Or more importantly, that they care what their government looks like.

There’s a reason why I constantly complain about our student government officials and why our editorial board made every attempt possible to criticize our outgoing District 5 Supervisor Wyndham Manning: College is where citizens begin asking themselves what they would do with their government — and these people answer the question with “Get elected and wait.”

Now, that isn’t as much of a sin in municipal affairs since city council’s momentum propels alders forward regardless of what their starting speed was. This year’s Edgewater saga should be enough to deal with, let alone having to chime in on a range of building projects, tenant rights reforms and budgetary items.

But students elected to the District 8 seat are still largely participating in a government in which they’ve been given a stake. Alcohol issues and safety concerns alone give students a clear outlet for their local political interests. The services and routes available to students through Madison’s channels of governances are accessible, navigable and, most importantly, already mapped out. Whether that’s because of UW-Madison’s proximity to downtown Madison or because alders like Eli Judge created new pathways, the point remains that there is a system in place that students can easily utilize if they need to.

This is not the case for County Board or ASM. Some students don’t even know there is a Dane County government, let alone who fills its seats. And when a few rogue politicos are wedged in there by way of a drawing of straws or sheer curiosity, they have to pitch to students what is important to address on county board. That’s a feat in itself, but when these government greenhorns plot themselves and settle down in a crowd of 36 other supervisors, the student connection has to be created by them — and likely, only them.

ASM’s relevancy is brightly illuminated in theory, but its ideas require a change of light bulbs. Student Council knows it is elected by students to serve only students, but when they arrive on Council, they use most of the time to either argue about what Council can legitimately achieve or what bylaws prevent them from success on those achievements. All the while, looming problems — seg fee increases, changes to student conduct codes, state fund raids — come baring down on the students, who decide to engage them right before they strike. By that time, it’s a defensive maneuver, not offensive.

The template in both situations is drastically different for students than affairs of the city — rather than participating in government, they’re expected to lay out the framework.

But it all depends on the individuals drawing up the blueprints.

ASM has at least made progress since I first arrived on campus. CR?sum? padding hacksR could have been stamped onto the CV s of half of Student Council and SSFC in the mid s00s. Council meetings were largely a battle between the determined but disconnected policy wonks and bobbleheaded ladder climbers who would give a thumbs up to any idea that sounded different.

While the inane discussions still come up, different committees have finally latched onto the basic struggles of the student body by tackling book prices, student loan reform and overall accessibility. While MPOWER’s platform may be misguided, the focus on identifiable student services and advocacy has finally become crystallized in most representatives’ minds.

But the District 5 seat is in disrepair. Former Dane County Supervisor Ashok Kumar focused on issues not at all connected to the student body and made little attempt engage the wider campus audience in a discussion on either his pet projects or anything particularly relevant.

When he left the seat, two candidates emerged. One started inserting ideas that didn’t even fall under the county’s jurisdiction and the other originally ran as a gag. Four hundred and fifty or so people voted and decided to elect the joke.

The result was two years of no contact, abysmal committee attendance and a complete disregard for District 5 constituents.

That joke isn’t funny anymore.

By sitting in District 5 seat only to focus his attention on his goddamned music festival, Wyndham Manning told students, “I want my government to be a status symbol to use in a few tweets and endorsements here and there.”

And so here we are: Left without any clear investment in the county.

There are no expectations and Eicher is faced with a blank slate.

So she has the perfect opportunity to make the seat in her image. It will take time for her to learn the ins and outs of county government. All this campus will ask of her is to keep us up to date. If she does that consistently and passes on information about what’s going on, people might start to trickle down this new path.

And once she had the knowledge and a modicum of campus attention, she can start rebuilding the foundations of District 5’s political base and ask once again, “What do I want my government to do?”

She just has to give a suitable answer this time around.

As does ASM.

Once they do, we can all start answering the question ourselves with a tad more specificity.

Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a first year graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.