Government of the Student Body presidential and vice presidential hopefuls may be promising a lot in their campaigns, which has some worried about whether the promises are realistic.

GSB President Mike Banasiak said he’s been able to keep most of the promises he made a year ago.

“Compared to past years, we have done an excellent job in getting things done, as far as seeing accomplishments finished and progress made, not only in GSB but in other areas of the university,” Banasiak said. “I truly believe we have raised the bar for the next GSB.”

Some aren’t so charitable when it comes to Banasiak’s accomplishments.

“I think he found out that those promises were not as easy to fulfill as he hoped,” said presidential candidate Drew Miller. “He’s been doing some work on them, but they’re not the sort of goals you can accomplish in one year without a specific plan.”

As the 2004-05 election draws near, Banasiak looks at the promises now being made to the student body and said he sees a mixture of old ideas reignited, questionable plans and misconceptions.

The slates of Sophia Magill and William Rock as well as Miller and Jenn Riggs both claim to have a passion for registering new voters. Miller said he hopes to work with the New Voters Project to sign up 9,000 students next year.

A fine goal, Banasiak said — but not a new one.

“Voter registration drives have been done for years,” he said. “And they’ve grown each year.”

Miller’s campaign also claims he’ll be looking at the issue of entertainment for college students under 21.

“Everyone promises this every year,” Miller said. “And the promises are always really vague. We’re looking at working with developers who are buying the Ames Theater [2420 Lincoln Way].”

Banasiak promised to work on the issue last year, and was approached by an out-of-town entrepreneur to help in the reopening of the Ames Theater as a nightclub. However, Banasiak declined when the developer wanted GSB to take an investor’s role in the project. He said while GSB would help promote the club to students, it was not GSB’s place to be an investor.

Miller has also presented a plan to bring campuswide recycling to Iowa State by allowing student groups to “adopt” buildings and supervise over recycling programs. For this, Miller said, the groups would be given easier access to funding through the finance committee. Banasiak said this may be a mistake.

“I don’t know if I would necessarily connect the finance process to a recycling program,” he said. “There are so many organizations that do such great things on this campus that I would not want to limit them if they did not or could not take part in a recycling program.”

Magill and Rock say they hope to bring a proposed multicultural center from an idea proposed by Banasiak last year into reality.

“I think it’s a very plausible goal,” Rock said. “We’re doing it right now, in fact. The discussion is out there, and still progressing in terms of deciding what this should be, and we are actually getting answers.”

Russell Graves, GSB presidential candidate, said he’s noticed a high rate of forgotten campaign promises among presidential hopefuls in his four years and has focused his campaign to avoid that.

Graves and his running mate, Dave Stout, said they aren’t worried about their campaign promises being feasible. Their focus, Graves said, will be grassroots initiatives based on a more plausible idea of what the GSB is and is not capable of.

“I think people need to start taking the Government of Student Body seriously,” Graves said. “One way to get them to do that is to not promise them the moon. People see the GSB as promising a lot, and delivering very little.”