Students at Boardman HS register for their first election

DSC_0055, originally uploaded by Rock the Vote 2008.

Bus Blog - Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

Miles travelled today: 109
Voters registered yesterday: 13,641

5:13 pm - Ohio! Land of tight elections, fish fries, and - for the first century of our republic - freedom from slavery.

In the present century it’s hard to argue that Ohio isn’t critical to any presidential hopeful and the advertising is out in force here. I have now been in our hotel room, an eerily sterile place, for fifteen minutes and seen three political advertisements. They are all vicious things suggesting one candidate or the other will destroy the country, set about armageddon, or otherwise severely muddle things up. You can leave a half-an-hour of TV fairly well convinced that the candidates are traitors, pederasts, or both.

Of course, I have worked with campaigns that tried to run clean and they tend to lose pretty badly. Americans may not like attack ads, but we do believe them.

We stopped at our first high school today, Boardman High School in Youngstown, Ohio. Outside the marching band and cheerleaders readied themselves to be bussed off to some distant football game while the nerds, goths, and stoners snickered in the hallways. For the first time, we ran into people who didn’t know their social security numbers. Job applications, credit checks, and utility bills have yet to hit these kids. This is the young end of the youth vote.

Ten minutes into our high-school visit, the hall monitor informed us that no one actually complied with the school’s dress code. “None of you have shaven,” he explained. “And you are using cell phones on school property. And that guy has cut off the bottom of his pants. And your jeans are ripped.”

A Navy representative had the table next to ours in the hallway and he sat smiling. He was clean-shaven and his pants were spotless.

He won the social victory, but it’s worth noting that our registration total (34 at the school) beat his.

--Nick Brown