ST. LOUIS – Rush hour traffic in St. Louis, Mo., crawled down Skinker Boulevard on Friday. The congested street was one of the only main roads open around Washington University, where the second presidential debate took place.

Even Washington students were trapped on their own campus, with orange plastic fences restricting their every move near the debate site. Faculty, students and staff were asked for their university identification at checkpoints around the perimeter – and, even after getting through, they still faced random checks from guards and police officers who were patrolling the campus. The only people not affiliated with the debates of the university who were allowed on campus were members of the media.

On the field outside of Graham Chapel, MSNBC set up a makeshift studio during the afternoon before the debate. Chris Matthews from Hardball sits on the stage preparing to go on the air as students behind him wait for the signal. A producer dressed in black rushes around the stage talking into a headset.

“90 seconds!” she yells to the crowd.

A roar erupts from the crowd as the producer and other members of the crew wave their arms like conductors of a symphony and students yell and cheer. They throw their arms in the air creating a waving wall of signs for Kerry-Edwards and Bush-Cheney. The chants of “Kerry” and “Bush” are almost inaudible as their voices battle each other for live sound bytes over national television.

Sally Zweimueller, senior in anthropology and psychology at Washington University, is among this mob and, like other students, said she doesn’t seem to mind the small inconveniences the event has caused.

“I’ve never seen our campus come together for an event like this before,” Zweimueller said.

A member of the College Democrats, she wears a bright pink shirt with the slogan, “John Kerry, give George W. Bush the Pink Slip.” She put her name into the lottery for the debate hall tickets being offered to students, but wasn’t picked. Approximately 5,873 students put their names into the lottery for only 100 tickets.

“We’re pretty jealous of the hundred that get to go in,” she said.

At Washington University, approximately 90 percent of the undergraduate population is from outside of Missouri. Zweimueller, who is from Mississippi, switched her voter registration to Missouri because it’s a swing state.

“My Democratic vote wouldn’t make a difference there (Mississippi),” she said.

Other students who were at the MSNBC stage said they too were torn between influencing the outcome in their home states and Missouri.

Nearby, Gary Burgett, Washington University sophomore in mechanical engineering, holds up a Bush-Cheney sign with other members of the College Republicans. During the 2000 election, Missouri went to President Bush, but Burgett said he isn’t sure about this election.

“It’s kind of up in the air,” Burgett said. “I would hope that it ends up Republican, but I don’t know.”

Burgett is from Michigan, which went to Al Gore by a narrow margin during the 2000 election. Even though Missouri is a swing state, Burgett is doing an absentee ballot out of a sense of “loyalty.”

“I’m trying to make my vote count back at home,” he said.

Meanwhile, on a lawn off-campus on Big Bend Boulevard near the debate site, protesters are engaged in peaceful dissent in the public viewing area. Large puppets and signs protesting the war and the debates are littered around the area as a few hundred people listen to speakers.

David Cobb, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, holds a megaphone and talks about the party’s agenda of social justice and systemic change. Cobb said the party is getting stronger with each election cycle.

“We’re living in a voting system where people feel they have to vote against what they hate rather than for what they want,” Cobb said. “And in that incredible context the Green Party is growing.”

A group of students from the University of Illinois Campus Greens were there to show support for third-party candidates and to protest third parties being banned from the debates.

“We came out today because we felt the Kerry-Bush debate does not show the full vision of America,” said Eric Uskali, freshman in engineering.

After Ross Perot’s success in the 1992 election, Uskali believes the government is afraid to let third-party candidates debate.

Earlier that day, Uskali attended a protest march around the perimeter of the campus, which ended near the intersections of Forsyth and Big Bend boulevards with a wall of riot police and state troopers. It was the first big protest he has attended and Uskali said the police response was “kind of intimidating.”

“In the Constitution it guarantees the right to protest but when you see the police … It almost seems like they don’t want you here protesting, they don’t want you here showing your dissent, they don’t want you here trying to change the country,” Uskali said.

During Cobb’s speech, the line of riot police continue to maintain their stand by the steel barricades where the march ended. Shortly after the start of the debates, Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik break through a line of police near the debate site and are arrested.

Even at the start of the debates, students are still anxiously trying to get into Graham Chapel to see a broadcast of the debate. In addition to the Graham Chapel area, the university set up five other places on campus for students to gather and watch the event.

The crowd outside of the MSNBC stage presses in closer, eyes fixed on two television screens, many of them still clutching their campaign signs.

On the other side of the library on Brookings Quadrangle, Wolf Blitzer, Jeff Greenfield and Carlos Watson are sitting on the CNN stage as another small crowd of students watches on.

During the debate, there’s almost a complete silence at both stages, except for the low hum of the high-powered studio lights and the whispers of students talking about comments made by both candidates. After the debate, some students leave campus for the night while others linger around the CNN and MSNBC stage for post-debate coverage – an opportunity for more cheering and political rallying. Mo Rocca, a former correspondent for The Daily Show on Comedy Central, is speaking at Graham Chapel and an enormous line of ticket holders and students just hoping to get in begins to form. The campus becomes noisy and buzzing with voices discussing the event.

Caitlin Caldwell, a Washington University alumna who was visiting for the weekend, said Kerry “came across more official and calm, suave and presidential. But I think what he’s saying doesn’t really add up.”

A registered Republican, Caldwell said she is worried this debate is going to swing people toward the Democratic ticket.

“If you’re undecided, watching the debates is incredibly important and I think Kerry did a better job,” Caldwell said.

But Kerry didn’t convince Colleen Paparella, an undecided voter and Washington University sophomore in English and pre-law.

“I’m not necessarily going to vote for Kerry but I think he was stronger in the debate,” she said.

While she is excited to be voting in her first election, she is not happy with the options.

“I feel like I’m not really happy with either candidate,” Paparella said. “I wish there were one I really backed. I’m kind of going back and forth.”

The network trucks parked on Francis Field begin to clear out and aside from the orange fences, the campus begins to return back to normal – at least for now. Washington University hosted a 2000 presidential debate and a 1992 debate, so the potential for the campus being taken over again in 2008 is very high. But if the students’ willingness to participate in this year’s debate activities on campus is any indication, most students don’t see the debates as an intrusion, but an opportunity to have their voices heard through their university and, later on, in the election itself.