I teach in a tiny little rural town. The vast majority of my students don't live in town, but on outlying acreage. Many are ranchers. Many are hunters. I expect a huge drop in attendance at our school over the next few weeks as families take off on hunting trips.

Rural areas tend red, and mine is no exception. Even in this decidedly red area, though, GWB has more detractors than fans.

Don't get me wrong. He has plenty of hard-core fans, too. But the number of families who oppose him, and who are supporting the Democratic nominee, is surprising from an area like this.

I'd seen no bumperstickers, no signs, heard no talk until recently. The ranches I drive past on my way to work typically sport republican signs; a few always have a sign for every republican on the ticket. The republican signs are out in force, but I haven't seen a single McCain sign to go along with those for state and local candidates.

I have seen a couple of Obama stickers, and one McCain/Palin bumper sticker. Most of my reading comes from listening to my middle-school students talk politics. They invariably parrot whatever they get at home, so I think it's a pretty good indication.

We had to have a meeting with the principal yesterday, my teaching partners and I. Politics are heating up. We don't take sides of any kind, or express political opinions of any kind. We do, however, cover the election as a current event, as a part of the government we teach about, and many students are proposing the presidential election as a debate topic for debate class.

I have one student who has taken to wearing a "McCain/Palin" button. Most of her peers ignore it; a few mention it to agree or argue. Her mom, though, was chatting with office staff this week and said, "____________(her 3rd grade son) wants us to get him a gun for Christmas. He told us that, since the Democrats are taking over, we'd all better be prepared to defend ourselves."

Hence the conversation about politics at school.

Interesting to note that the most hard-core McCain supporters in this area have conceded the election.

Worse is the total ignorance on the part of those most likely to love Palin, to support McCain--ignorance brought on by decades of mass media propaganda and propaganda from the pulpit. In my opinion.

The button-wearing student is in debate class. We're doing our best to expose her to critical thinking skills. The class is taught to recognize fallacies, and to back up their positions with solid evidence. It's a long, hard hill to climb in some cases.

I've taught in suburbia. While thinking wasn't exactly popular, it was easier to teach thinking skills there. In this little rural area, there is an embedded antipathy to thinking. People prefer to repeat what they've been told, and consider themselves "smart."

It's only the first week of October, and I'm already tired.