Outside of the people who run for student government, does anyone
in high school really care who gets elected class president? And yet isn't that
what makes stories about student-body elections so fascinating? The stakes are
so low, yet the way these kids campaign—and the reasons their classmates
vote for them—says a lot about the political process and the American educational system's
12-year-long popularity contest. Caroline Suh's documentary Frontrunners follows the presidential election
at Stuyvesant High, an exclusive Manhattan magnet school known for turning out
future leaders. But even at this rarefied a level, the same mundane process of
putting up posters and passing out flyers pertains. And even the award-winning
student newspaper votes on its much-coveted candidate endorsement in the
classic "heads down, raise your hand" school-kid secret ballot.
