Mock election, C-SPAN bus raise teens' civic awareness
Middletown North students debate issues in class campaign
BY TOM SHORTELL Staff Writer
Ayla Nucu is at something of a crossroads. The 18-year-old Middletown High School North student will vote for the first time this Election Day. While she considers herself a Democrat, she's come to an important realization about Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican candidate Chris Christie.

Left to right: Middletown High School North students tour the C-SPAN Civics Bus on Oct. 22. The school was selected because students were to participate in a mock gubernatorial election. Students listen to Rebecca Stewart, a marketing rep with C-SPAN, aboard the Civics Bus, which can serve as a mobile production studio.

"I don't really like either," she said.

Nucu reached this conclusion in large part because of the mock gubernatorial campaign her social studies course had this year. Her social studies teacher, Ed Jones, divided each of his classes into groups of four and had each group research a candidate. For his larger classes, that meant researching some of the lesser-known candidates.

"[Independent candidate Joshua] Leinsdorf is very tough to defend, but I think they did a good job," Jones said.

The groups had to know their candidates' stances on taxes, education, jobs and the economy, and the environment, Jones said. They then had to know the issues well enough to debate them intelligently Oct. 21.

"As a social studies teacher, that is one of the most important things I can accomplish," Jones said.

During the first week of November, about 100 students from Jones' classes will participate in the New Jersey chapter of the National Student/Parent Mock Election. The students will go to a website and vote for a candidate as well as the public referendum on whether the state should bond $400 million to replenish the Open Space fund.

It's the second time Jones' class has participated in the mock election. Last year, his students followed national trends by voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. This election season, Jones sees less awareness on the issues and hears more of the students' backgrounds in the debates.

"You can almost hear their parents talking out of their mouths," he said, adding that the township is a historically Republican stronghold. Overall, though, Jones said the students seem to be split 50-50 between Corzine and Christie, mirroring current polls.

Wilson Conde exits the C-SPAN bus, which travels to schools across the country to promote interest in government.

The participation in the mock elections attracted the CSPAN Civics Bus to the school Oct. 22. The bus, a mobile production studio for the cable network that broadcasts congressional proceedings, travels the country 11 months out of the year to discuss the network's goal of transparency, said Rebecca Stewart, a C-SPAN marketing representative. Middletown North was one of nine New Jersey schools the bus stopped at that week, she said.

"The students are always excited to see the bus," she said.

Stewart discussed the bipartisan network's goal of giving people access to their legislators by filming the House of Representatives and the Senate. For some students, it served as a lesson that getting information about their leaders and government is a channel away.

"Americans need to watch more," said Dan Poltrictzky, a senior who won a T-shirt for identifying two female secretaries of state from a jumble of images flashed on a television.

Like Nucu, Poltrictzky isn't sure who he'll vote for on Nov. 3. What he has come away with is that officials are elected to serve their constituents.

"Politicians should be on the side of the people," he said.