My Vote: Not Phased, But Not Undecided

Mom thought about bubbling the circle for Dukakis or the first George Bush. All I thought about was getting my hands on one of those huge cardboard boxes so I could wear it on my head. Or maybe build a fort.

This morning, 20 years later, I walked myself down Wall Street in Manhattan to my polling place. Passing beneath the statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall, where he was sworn in as the first President of the United States, I was thinking about a lot more than the pure delight I could derive from playing with an empty box.

For the past few weeks, I’ve sat front row to the economic crisis at the center of this year’s presidential race. While watching live news broadcasts from the Stock Exchange, I could lean out my window and see the reporters down the street speaking in front of their bright lights and satellite trucks.

Every morning on my way school, I pass a motley crew of protesters—some who object to the government’s $700 billion bailout of the financial sector, some who think the answer to all our problems is to elect 86-year-old convicted felon Lyndon LaRouche, and others whose message is obscured by their screaming and flailing about.

Every morning, I also pass by the World Trade Center site, which both political parties have invoked as a symbol to justify their respective approaches to fighting terrorism. I’ve seen more protesters there, using megaphones to convey their bizarre conspiracy theories about the U.S.