On the Way to Cleveland

DSC_0077, originally uploaded by Rock the Vote 2008.

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Voters registered yesterday: 16,303
Miles driven today: 62

11:25 pm - As I'm writing this our economy is collapsing. And not some gentle fall-back-onto-your-pillow collapse. This is the real deal. A full-blown-house-of-cards-kicked-down-by-your-older-brother collapse. Lou Dobbs is frothing at the mouth ready to physically assault some poor congressman. He is one of the many on-air pundits trying to personify the subsurface rage of most of us feel. We are all too baffled by the details of who took what from whom and how to even begin to contemplate a solution.

Of course, the solution - or lack thereof - will determine the fate of us youths. When jobs start disappearing, those dreams of making it big start to look a lot less reasonable and the freshly-hatched college grads who are taking their first breath in the working world are as likely as not to end up stifled in some miserable minimum-wage grind.

And here comes the segue-- we spent the afternoon trying give those soon-to-be college grads a voice in their government. First stop: University of Akron, an undeniably beautiful school with a kangaroo mascot named Zippy. Zippy didn't put in an appearance, but several members of his constituency did. We registered 47 voters during the course of a quick concert by Bang Camaro and then picked up anchor and headed for Kent State University, where we will be hosting a concert on Friday headlined by Hawthorne Heights.

-- Nick Brown