At Cross Campaign Rally, Old School Meets New School

Most were too young to vote, but hundreds of high-school students at least got a civics lesson — and a taste of the excitement of campaign politics — when Michelle Obama came to Wilbur Cross Thursday.

Rally organizers could have filled the gym a couple of times over, but the fire marshal limited the room to an estimated 2,200 attendees, with another 750 or so seated in the auditorium to watch a live stream of the event, which was a get-out-the-get-out-the-vote rally for the reelection campaign of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. (The First Lady did stop by the auditorium as well before delivering her speech.)

Hundreds of the attendees were from Wilbur Cross — including the pictured staffers from the Proclamation, the student paper — as well as from other New Haven high schools.

Carly Buccitti, a tenth-grader at Co-op High School, described herself as generally ​“not into politics.” But when her dad proposed they hear the First Lady speak, she jumped at the chance.

Her dad Ralph Buccitti, a transportation union worker, said he thought the event would be ​“historic and educational” for his daughter. He said he was going to vote for Malloy, but that the system is not currently good enough. He said the bus drivers he represents need better pension plans and higher wages.

Three Wilbur Cross students — Mark Gorski, Sammy Rosofsky and David Landolfi — were in the jazz band that played the event’s background music. Rosofsky is a senior, and all of the school’s seniors were allowed to attend the rally.

“Most people are here because it’s cool to see Michelle Obama,” Gorski said.

Toella Pliakas and Cecilia Giaimo, sophomores at the private Hopkins School, led a delegation of their school’s Young Democrats to the rally.

Pliakas said she was worried about how the election would effect policies on gun control. ​“It’s interesting that the majority of Americans agree with some form of gun control, but some candidates don’t,” she said.

And, although the issue does not affect her private school, she said, she would like to see a major reform of the new Common Core public-school standards — which she said are ​“ineffective” and ​“stagnate learning.”

“It’s like telling all the fish in a tank to climb a tree. Not all of them can,” Giaimo said.

After talking with a couple of reporters, Pliakas spotted U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro walking into the gymnasium and ran off to take a photo with her. ​“She volunteered for her over the summer,” Giaimo said.

Another group of Hopkins students had been canvassing for Malloy throughout the month of October, as interns for the Connecticut Democrats. They are taking a history elective at their school called ​“21st Century Democracy.”

The group went out to knock on doors in Westville on Wednesday, said Walker Schneider (pictured at left, along with Curtis Maher, Griffin Smith, Alex Liu and Sayer Paige). Schneider is a senior and the only one of the group who is old enough to vote. He said he planned to vote for Malloy on Tuesday.

All said they had seen the negative advertising on television from each side, but that it would not affect the way they voted or thought about the election.