It looks like all of America has been caught up in the politically charged super storm estimated to produce the highest voter turnout in decades. The average citizen could hardly turn on the television, listen to the radio, or even hop in the family car and go for a Sunday drive, taking advantage of the comparatively low gas prices, without getting bombarded with the plans, promises, and muck raking of politicians from seemingly every party and position.

For example Senator Barack Obama bought a 30 minute chunk of prime time television on a handful of channels last Wednesday, Oct. 29, which pushed back the World Series. With all this advertising, and the historical qualities of the candidates, it’s no big surprise then that the political hype is spreading. Richmond Hill High School hosted a mock election recently where both students and teachers got in on the democratic goodness by casting their vote.

The election was held over a period of eight days during which every student and teacher should have hypothetically voted. When the final results were tallied for the student presidential election John McCain emerged as the victor with an impressive 762 votes, Obama finished with a not-so-far-behind 520 votes. Fifty students voted for the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr. The teacher election showed similar results although McCain’s lead was a bit more pronounced.

Interestingly enough other questions on the poll indicated that an overwhelming percentage of students, approximately 47 percent, said that the most influential factor on their political views was their parents. This vastly overshadowed the next highest given influence, the media, which gathered only 259 votes, about nineteen percent. Students also indicated that the most important issue to them when selecting a candidate was the economy, followed by morals and values.

On a humorous note the students voted education to be one of the least important issues, it received 44 of 1334 votes. The election also revealed that, in alignment with the results, most Richmond Hill students consider themselves Republicans, 45 percent, followed by Democrats, 25 percent, which was followed exceptionally close by those students who do not claim any political party, 23 percent.

Other stats still being acquired include which teacher students thought to have the biggest impact on their political views, thus far AP Government teacher Sharon Worsham leads.

Overall, those in charge of the mock election at RHHS are calling the event a major success. This is just one more example of a political season that has become historically invigorating and provocative.