When Florida Sen. Marco Rubio signed a campaign poster for Kathy Johnson, she told him she was going to hang it on the wall of her classroom at Nashua High School South where she teaches an Advanced Placement Government class.
“He was amazed and impressed that I got to teach AP Government in New Hampshire,” Johnson recalled. "He understood immediately how great it is and it has been the best year to teach this ever.”
With a socialist senator and celebrity billionaire challenging the status quo, candidates once presumed front-runners are fighting for every vote. The drama is built-in and dominating both headlines and pop culture.
“So all the things we would be studying anyway, everybody’s kind of talking about” explained Johnson. “It makes them more knowledgeable in the rest of their life to the people they talk to in their own circles, that they’re the go to person that knows what’s happening.”
It’s a unique time to study presidential politics and an ideal place—New Hampshire. Students earn extra credit if they go to a campaign event.
“I saw Trump," said sophomore Alex Safarwitz. "There was George Pataki, Jim Webb and Bernie Sanders. When you actually get to be in the same room with them they become a real person, instead of a presidential candidate.”
Yet political celebrity has a certain power, as senior Noah Telerski discovered when he went to a Hillary Clinton event to ask a question and ended up backstage taking a photo with her.
“I was a little starstruck,” Telerski said. “I was going to ask her about student loans.”
The cost of college is a major issue for many of the students and the main reason sophomore Dallas Quinlan started the school year supporting Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who has promised tuition-free college.
“While free college is definitely a noble idea, I don't think it's realistic,” Quinlan, who now supports Rubio, a Republican, said.
Johnson says it’s not unusual for kids to come into her class with their parents' politics and end up with their own perspective. She calls the class a clearinghouse of ideas. It has the feel of political museum. Life-size cardboard cutouts of candidates dominate the front of the classroom. Campaign memorabilia from the 2016 race is tacked to what the students call the "swag wall." All of it was collected by students learning about government while experiencing a front-row seat to history.
"In New Hampshire, it’s just built in to the cake,” says Johnson. "I grew up in Southern California and, every day I tell these kids—you don’t know how lucky you are—this ain’t happening in other states.”
