I didn't get punched; also no one registered

I guess I thought it would be more exciting than this.

I saw myself getting clocked in the face, stumbling back, dropping the voter registration forms and watching the little American flag land in the dirt, a poetic metaphor of democratic participation.

There was that kvetch, the guy promising to punch the next person to ask him if he was registered to vote.

I wanted to be that person. It would’ve made a hell of a column.

When I began my attempt to document the struggles of the registration kids first-hand, I thought at least people would tell me they don’t vote because they’re anarchists or yell any of the other angry responses common in the week before this Friday’s registration deadline.

They didn’t. I wasn’t punched or yelled at, just faced with a campus that’s reached its saturation point.

With the help of Barack Obama supporters, so numerous they sometimes accidentally ask each other if they’re registered, almost 10,000 voters have been added to the rolls in Orange County since May.

North Carolina, for the first time since 1976, is now in play.

But their efforts have also made it so people on campus immediately recognized the clipboard and the flag. They shot out a “yes” before I could manage an “Are you registered to vote at your current address?”

Many were cordial. They smiled. Some weren’t from America, they let me know with convincing accents.

But it was a lonely road out there. Even when I was just walking with the clipboard, people tried to avoid eye contact. When our eyes did meet, they wore looks of guilt, bracing for the approach of a stranger.

The Obama kids know this. They have their own stories of negative reactions.

There was the Virginia Tech game at Kenan Stadium when they were cursed and spit at by folks angered that anyone would try to mix sports and politics.

Chris Lazinski, a sophomore, approached a homeless man with high hopes of helping him utilize his right to vote. The man was a former Klan member voting for John McCain. Epithets were thrown.

In the past week the Obama supporters have switched tactics. Instead of approaching strangers, they sit back with signs that say, “Register to vote here.”

Their numbers have jumped on campus. In mid-September they were registering less than 30 people a day. With the new tactic and the approach of Friday’s deadline, their registration numbers are now in the hundreds per day.

At the Obama office on campus, there is a large thermometer hanging on the wall. At the top, their goal of 5,000 is written in purple. The red, marking where they are now, has passed 4,000.

They’ve registered Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and even a Communist.

The saturation of our campus, though, is part of a partisan strategy: If you want your candidate to win in a state, you increase the voters in his strongholds.

In North Carolina, one of those strongholds is Orange County, where Democratic presidential hopefuls win handily and UNC provides a campus full of young, mostly Democratic voters.

So it’s annoying. But if you like Obama, they’re helping your guy.

And if you don’t, that’s all the more reason to get registered.

The deadline is Friday.