From The Classroom: Local Politics

From The Classroom: Election Special ’09 Freshmen 8, Politicians 2

Posted on 11. Nov, 2009 at 10:52 am by Seth Perry in COLUMNS, From The Classroom, Local Politics

The election has come and gone. Congratulations to the winners, especially Josh Cohen! May you serve our great city signwaving copy well.

Anyway, as I drove to school Tuesday, I saw people in bright yellow shirts on the sidewalk waving signs.

Out in the cold.

Morons, I thought.

That struck me as strange, though. Annapolis has lots of crime, historical buildings, and boats. But I had never before seen these yellow-clad doofuses freezing themselves in the cold. Maybe it was a new phenomena.

Then I took a look at their signs.

CHRIS FOX, INDEPENDENT FOR MAYOR.

Oh, yeah. The elections.

I decided that I was going to have to pull together a column on teens’ views on the election pretty quick. As soon as I got to school, I started going up to students and what they thought about the mayor’s race. I got a wide range of answers, such as:

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t know about that.”

“What?”

“There’s a mayor’s race?”

So, using the helpful information given to me, I have compiled the Annapolis teenage population’s views on the mayoral race, as follows:

“………………….*crickets*…………………..”

Remember, though, this is the generation that still doesn’t have its First Amendment rights down. Let’s take this one step at a time. Once they’ve mastered freedom of the press and its first amendment cousins, then they can go on to following local politics.

Of course, I don’t know why teens wouldn’t be interested in these elections. Sure, they don’t have the giltz, glamour, and attached power of national elections, and maybe the winning mayoral candidate gets less than 5000 votes or so. But still, in my opinion, the candidates have taken great steps to market their campaigns to teens.

First, their names–right off the bat–appeal to today’s teenagers.These names just sound like someone whose house you could go over to play video games with. Josh. Chris. Dave. (Gilbert Renaut and Trudy McFall, you should be taking notes.) Of course, the name rule doesn’t apply for national politics (see: John v. Barack), but in the intimate setting of local politics, these things matter.

Second, from its very beginning, the campaign has resembled an ultra-long episode of Gossip Girl.

How do we begin? Let’s see…there were fake emails announcing that certain candidates were dropping out of races. There was a shocking scandal in which the Democratic mayoral nominee dropped out the day after her nomination. A disgruntled Democrat back-stabbed her own party by endorsing a bevy of Republicans, and let’s not forget the racist/homophobic hate literature targeting Scott Bowling.

Like, OMG! So much drama….

Just like a bunch of (dare I say) high school freshmen.

That got me thinking–what if my class was in the running for mayor? How would they stack up next to the current candidates (and the current candidates’ occasionally reproachable behavior)? Are the current Annapolis politicians really that different from current Annapolis freshmen–or even better? Let’s take a look:

Flip-Flopping:

Current Annapolis Politicians: They seem to have an issue with making up their minds. A general rule that applies for buildings and politics is that, if there is no stability, they will fall. Iron and steel understand and follow this rule. Politicians do not. Flip-floppers, please step up. It’s one thing to be outperformed by your colleagues. It’s another thing to be outperformed by metal.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: After the scandal at the VMAs, the web was filled with facebook statuses and twitter updates saying ‘Kanye sux’, ‘omg kanyes such a douchebag’, et cetera. And in the aftermath of this, not one–not one single freshman–changed their status back to ‘Y’know, Kanye might be OK.’

Winner: Freshmen

Views on Recreation:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Build a rec center ($16m).

Current Annapolis Freshmen: PAR-TAYYYYY at someone’s house! (free)

Winner: Freshmen

Wasteful Spending:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Spend a bajillion dollars on the sister city program, the Market House, the Outer West St. gateway, et cetera.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Spend a bajillion dollars at American Eagle.

Winner: Politicians

The Despicable Goings-On in Ward 3

Current Annapolis Politicians: Decline to say anything when it comes to their opponent’s attention that racist/homophobic flyers are being stuck on people’s cars, denouncing him a ‘white & gay’ and sinful.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Have possession of a new, modern technology called ‘tolerance’. (They also have possession of a new, modern technology called the internet, which means that if they really wanted to spread that message, they could have shown it to millions of people in ten seconds).

Winner: Freshmen

Market House

Current Annapolis Politicians: Built the Market House. We all know how that went.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Build scale models of pyramids for history class. Much cheaper, and does just as much for the community!

Winner: Freshmen

Transportation:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Want to improve the health and safety of bus drivers and passengers by fixing the air conditioning and heat, improve service for the disabled, make reliable, predictable and convenient routes, and improve transportation management and priorities.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Plan on begging their parents for cars in a year or so.

Winner: Freshmen

Crime:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Are against crime.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Are against crime, unless you count buying a ticket for a PG-13 rated movie and then going to see an R-rated one by yourself as a crime.

Winner: Tie

The Arts:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Support all expression of art to add to our city’s wonderful feel.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Support putting up giant posters of Megan Fox throughout the city.

Winner: Freshmen

Taxes

Current Annapolis Politicians: Debate furiously over whether taxes are too high, whether the funds received from said taxes are being used wisely, and what to do about them.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: Don’t pay taxes.

Winner: Freshmen

Environment:

Current Annapolis Politicians: Talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk about cleaning up the bay. It hasn’t gotten any cleaner.

Current Annapolis Freshmen: After watching Wall-E, feel pangs of guilt whenever they step into a car or put a candy bar wrapper in the trash. (This does not get the bay any cleaner.)

Winner: Tie