Dayton, OH

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Young voters registered yesterday - 27,862

Miles travelled today - 135 so far

3:37 pm – During the bad old days of the cold war, Soviet intellectuals hammered home a somewhat dubious claim. Freedom of speech, they argued, is not protected in the United States. How could they advance this perfidious rumor? Well, it was based around that most American of institutions, the shopping mall. The argument runs like this: because a shopping mall is the primary place of commerce and therefore the common meeting ground of US citizens and because it is privately owned, the owners of a mall can suppress any assembly, speech, or petition (very obscure pun intended) they don't like. So the "freedom of speech" in the US is a hollow facade that allows only the fat cats to say what they please.

Obviously, there are huge problems with this argument. The first and most obvious being that a mall is hardly the only - or even the primary - place that opinions are expressed and passed on.

But today it was hard not to feel a little sympathetic to the bad old Soviets. Today we got kicked out of the mall of Dayton for registering voters.

The mall has a no soliciting policy, with 'soliciting' defined broadly enough to include registering voters one day before the Ohio deadline, asking for nothing, giving out nothing, and generally maintaining a quiet, reserved presence. It was particularly frustrating because we were fairly successful. While there were no doubt cantankerous passersby who objected to a stranger approaching them with any question, however benign, most of the mall patrons were pleased to have us there, particularly the 14 or so we registered before being evicted.

I am tempted to write a long harangue on the importance of civic participation. But I'm not going to mention here that our nation is founded and maintained upon that principle. Nor will I suggest that the mall's policies literally embody Soviet criticisms of this country. I come here to bury my frustration, not to exacerbate it.

I will, however, suggest that if you read this and find it shameful that the highest-up people we were allowed to speak with kicked out a charity group whose sole purpose is to register voters one day before the registration deadline in Ohio, then you might express that opinion here: http://www.daytonmall.net/go/suggForm.cfm

Meanwhile, we are off to friendlier pastures outside an event with The Onion's, editors in Columbus this evening.