FrontRunners

D: Caroline Suh

Manhattan’s notoriously competitive Stuyvesant High School admits 3% of the 25,000 kids who apply each year, and the student council elections largely reflect the sophistication you might expect from such a school, complete with televised debates, school newspaper endorsements, and an actual primary process, even. But FrontRunners‘ charm is seated not so much in the competition among its four Ivy League-bound presidential candidates but in the dichotomy between the smarts that got them where they are and the inexperience that proves they are, alas, just kids. As they take on popularity, voter apathy, and the politics of race in a school where a viable ticket must have “at least one Asian,” FrontRunners‘ future politicians learn that winning the hearts and minds of the voters is tricky, even when your ticket represents, as one candidate proclaims, a “synergical force of amiability which is far beyond the reaches of normal human comprehension.”

Friday, March 14, 6:30pm, ACC

This article appears in March 14 • 2008.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US