Downplay and Double Barrel at OSU

DSC_0158, originally uploaded by Rock the Vote 2008.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Young voters registered yesterday: 18,486
Miles travelled today: 161

10:27 pm Columbus, OH — Friday nights suck. Excuse the vulgarity, but I’ll stand by this position. They are the worm in your apple; the pad of butter you left in the pocket of your laundry; the rat turd in your bag of peanuts. If Friday night was kicked in the groin by the school bully and he collapsed to the floor moaning and rolling, you would know deep down that he deserved it. If Friday night were a president he would be Grover Cleveland. If he were a dictator: Stalin.

I know this is not a popular position. TGI Friday’s, for one, may object. ‘Friday Night Lights’ too. Also: anybody working five days a week in this country. But none of these people have had to starve themselves of sleep every Friday as they charge headlong from one late night event to a football tailgate at an unholy hour of the morning.

Last night the event in question was the televised presidential debate at the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland. The headlong charge: from Cleveland to Columbus, arriving at 2:15 am for a four hour nap before an early morning zombie-stumble to the car, coffee, and the Ohio State tailgate.

The good news is that we did good work. In three hours we registered 112 voters, hosted two concerts, and heard ‘Hang on Sloopy’ (the official song of both Ohio State University and the state of Ohio) at least four times.

Ohio State games pull a crowd. Today’s official figure was 105,175. We saw a good solid portion of them as Double Barrel and Downplay played in front of the bus and they are registering and interested. As anyone watching the 2004 election can attest, Ohio matters. With roughly 120,000 votes cast differently, the election would have run the other way. If this football game and the tailgate party around it wanted to, they could probably determine the next president of this country.

Of course we’re not the only ones who see this. Every major voter-registration organization in this country has its shock troops on the ground here trying to expand the electorate. On the more active campuses we have visited, it’s a surprise if we don’t run into some hyper-political student or non-profit employee registering voters... which is why we are taking the bus someplace more unusual this evening. Tonight we are in downtown Columbus standing outside a club and getting people ready for the election day. It will be a long night with little sleep, but there is some solace: it is not Friday.

-- Nick Brown