The United States presidential election of 2008, scheduled for Tuesday November 4, 2008, will be the 56th consecutive quadrennial United States presidential election and will select the President and the Vice President of the United States. This year's race has been followed closely not only in the US but the world over and in Poland a mock election was held in a secondary shool in Ruda Slaska in the southern Silesian regions.
Report by Agnieszka Bielawska.
On October 30th pupils of the secondary school in Ruda Slaska went to the polls to vote for the President of the US. The interest in the history and present day of the US at the school is obvious since it is the only school in Poland named after a former American president says Katarzyna Orpnik, the school's psychologist: 'President Hoover is our patron since three years now. Every five years we stage elections for the Polish President and we thought it would be a good thing now if we prepared such elections for the US president.'
Herbert Clark Hoover was a great friend of Poland and that is the reason why he had been selected as patron of the school in Ruda Slaska. American history, tradition and literature are a very important subject at the school. However, preceding the mock elections politics and the two candidates to the US Presidential seat topped history lessons, said Lukasz Nura, English language teacher at the Clark Hoover school in Ruda Slaska: 'We have very good history teachers. They teach the pupils the lives and history of the two candidates Obama and McCain and other presidents. I am convinced that the pupils know everything about the programmes of the two candidates.'
US polls show Barack Obama and John McCain neck-and-neck in a half-dozen crucial swing states. The turnover at the polls at the Herbert Hoover school in Ruda Slaska was some 50% , that is from among the pupils who were willing to take part in the event. This illustrates the interest in the US history and politics, underline the school's teachers. And the results reflect similar polls taken elsewhere in the world: 'Junior high school classes and high school classes voted. At the very end we had 85% for Barak Obama and 15% for John McCain. Our pupils think that Obama is much better than McCain, he is younger, handsome, slimmer and he would be the first African American president of the US. I think it is a kind of 'signum temporis'.'
The Herbert Clark Hoover School in Ruda Slaska was visited in September by US Deputy Assistant of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen P.Graffy, who was informed about the plans to hold the mock elections and the event on Thursday was attended by the US deputy Consul in Poland Aaron Damiet. He was very impressed with the knowledge of the pupils and their awareness of events in the US underlines Lukasz Nura: 'He was very happy to see that our students are so interested in the US elections. After the elections he talked about elections in the USA and about the two candidates. He was pleased to acknowledge that our students are interested and know so much.'