hen Brookline High School teacher Linda Markell couldn't wangle seats at the debate for her advanced-placement government students, she got them into the next-best event: the Massachusetts Democratic Party's extravaganza at the Park Plaza.
But at 9 o'clock last night - a moment several of her students pinpointed as the most exciting time they'd ever witnessed in American politics - they found themselves jammed behind security barriers in a crush of bodies in the hotel's tony lobby.
Between 1,500 and 1,700 people, many of them college students and campaign volunteers, were eventually admitted to the event, but for many it was not until the debate was one-third over.
The result was a lesson in American politics - but not the one they expected.
Harvard freshman Christine Temyn considered it lucky and an honor to get a ticket to the hotel event, but by the time she made it through the Secret Service check and the debate was well under way, she was hopping mad.
''We're certainly the lowest rung of the priority list,'' said Temyn, sighing with relief after getting out of the crowd.
The event - whose pink tickets contained an invitation to ''join the Massachusetts Democratic Party in extending a Boston welcome'' to Vice President Al Gore - included mainly 18- to 24-year-old voters, a sometimes baffling, and always elusive, block.
Among Markell's young students from Brookline High School, two of the most common bellwether issues were nuclear weapons and the right to abortion. Safely inside the Park Plaza's ballroom, where the students snacked on pizza and sodas, 17-year-old Simon Proekt watched the candidates out of the corner of his eye and reckoned Gore was edging Bush out. For him, the most significant moment was meeting the candidate outside the hotel before the debate.
''How often do you get the chance to shake'' a candidate's hand, marveled Proekt.
