Over the past few weeks, Brad Rinn’s first period speech and debate class has been hard at work. They were starting a mock election and debate about three parties: Republican, Democrat, and Independents.

“We jumped to politics after our interview speeches and fishbowl debates in order to start and finish this before the real election with Obama and McCain ended,” said Rinn.

The class of 38 students started with six parties; Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Reform, and Libertarian. After researching the philosophies of each the class separated into the three final parties.

The Republican ticket featured presidential candidate senior Jason Bennett along with vice presidential candidate senior Jessica Fogarty. The Democrats put up presidential candidate senior Mason Hershenow along with VP sophomore Alex Solorio. Representing the Independent Party were sophomore Alex Perkins along with running mate junior Chris McCloskey.

“I was already proclaimed a Democrat and Jason was proclaimed a Republican so we became leaders,” said Hershenow. “We put up the flyers for the class and for fun. Unfortunately someone went around and ripped most of them down which sucks.”

The students researched their party and were required to come up with five ‘planks’ and four ‘platforms.’

“The planks are the big ideas of the parties,” said Rinn. “The planks them are put together to form the platforms.”

A few examples of the planks for the Republicans are the Iraq war, healthcare, and challenging illegal immigration. For the Democrats it was Healthcare, a ‘quick but safe way to end the war in Iraq’, and clean energy. Independents spoke of pro-choice, healthcare, and the reduction of prison population.

Students were assigned as speech writers, others artwork coordinators (for flyers, etc), and some were to organized research for their party.

According to Rinn, the whole thing was supposed to be a small class project, but it grew and kept getting bigger.

“That was week one, during week two we finalized speeches, preformed them and practiced in the JB Gale theater,” said Rinn, “We also had a fishbowl debate where we discussed planks and the parties retooled some of their ideas.”

Day one of speech deliveries it was just the class, day two was open to everyone who wished to come and according to Rinn, the third day of speeches the theater was packed.

During the last week, each party boiled down their planks into one speech and that Tuesday all the candidates gave their speeches in the amphitheater.

“I think that about 75-100 people showed up, a result I am very pleased with,” said Rinn.

Vote day finally came, and according to Rinn things were crazy. Students emailed teachers with rules, and packed up ballots and sign up sheets.

Around 1,100 students voted. The Democrats received 454 votes, the Republicans got 423 votes, and the Independents received 277 votes.

“I was extremely please with the way the entire project panned out,” said Rinn. “I really wanted to see if the students here reflect society or are the trendsetters. I guess we’ll just have to wait until November to see if they are or are not just following in their parents footsteps.”

Last Friday, the class swore in Mason Hershenow as president.

“It was all very fun and exciting,” said Rinn. “I am extremely happy with everything.”