Seven days until vote
Tuesday marks seven days until Americans vote in federal and state races on Nov. 8. All year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has brought you the key moments in those races, and it will continue to cover the campaign's main events, examine the issues and analyze candidates' finance reports until the last ballot is counted. You can follow the developments on the AJC's politics page at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/georgia-politics/ and in the Political Insider blog at http://www.myajc.com/s/news/political-insider/. You can also track our coverage on Twitter at https://twitter.com/GAPoliticsNews or Facebook at https://facebook.com/gapoliticsnewsnow.
Grady High School teacher Mario Herrera is walking a tightrope this election season.
Herrera, the coach for the seven-time state speech and debate championship team, watched the three presidential debates with his students and has had to explain to them that this is not how candidates should comport themselves. He’s gone back and forth with friends who fret for the nation’s future. He’s had to keep his opinions about the divisive campaign to himself.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has sought to hear from Georgians this fall about any impact the campaign has had on their lives. Herrera said the campaign has made him — get this — optimistic about the future amid the gloom felt by many voters. He credits his students and history for teaching him that there will be life after the maelstrom of Election 2016.
“There’s always hope. There’s always hope,” he said during a recent interview in his classroom. “Every time I think that things are out of control, a student will do something or say something or get involved with something that shows me it’s going to be OK.”
The 48-year-old, who’s been a coach for 27 years, said he’s used movies, plays and news coverage as classroom material and for debate prep. His students are political junkies (so, too, is Herrera), and they have gorged themselves on the many plot twists of the campaign.
Herrera said he’s had to be careful. Some students, he said, want their biases confirmed by him.
He said his job is make sure his students think critically.
“And it’s impossible to do that if I’m biased,” he said.
The students, he said, have reached some conclusions about the campaign. They all think Hillary Clinton will win the presidency. They think there should be tighter controls on campaign contributions. They say gerrymandering, the gaming of political districts to ensure one party’s advantage, should be illegal. The U.S. should do away with the Electoral College, they say.
The campaign has taught his students how political passions can get out of control, even toward them. The students, who watched the first presidential debate with an AJC reporter, were surprised by online reader comments criticizing their debate analysis. The second debate presented a different challenge. CNN invited them to watch the debate, but staffers were concerned some language used in the debate may be too explicit in light of the Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” audio controversy. Herrera scrambled to make sure parents would be OK with anything said by the candidates that night.
The students ordered pizza before the final debate and watched with no cameras around.
Herrera, who lives for researching issues and making concise arguments about a position, concedes he’s been exasperated by the campaign’s lack of substance. He’s worried the rhetoric of this campaign will become the norm.
Herrera said history has helped him gain perspective. He remembers watching cartoons as a child when the show was interrupted by a man sitting behind a big desk looking sad and angry. He ran to his mother and asked what was happening. The man was President Richard Nixon. He was announcing his resignation.
“I remember thinking my country will never recover from that,” Herrera said. “We recovered.”
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