But the Lakota East High School student from Liberty Township already has had an unpleasant introduction to the seamy side of politics.

Last weekend, minutes after obtaining two tickets to President Bush's huge rally Monday in West Chester, Caudell said she had the tickets ripped from her hand by two men who objected to the Kerry bumper sticker on her car.

The men, Caudell said, blocked her from getting into her car outside the West Chester office of Rep. John Boehner, one of the GOP's distribution points for the rally tickets, until one forcibly took the tickets from her. The two 40-ish men -- who Caudell believes were Bush campaign volunteers -- also were verbally abusive, calling her a "sinner" and "terrorist" for supporting Kerry and even going far as to suggest that she might intend to harm Bush at the rally.

"Their actions and words upset my daughter to the point of tears," said Caudell's mother, Andrea Cornell. "It's unspeakable to think anyone would act in this manner."

Butler County GOP leaders feel the same way, though they are not entirely willing to accept the story at face value and said Wednesday that they had not previously heard about Caudell's encounter.

"If you have a Kerry supporter involved, you have to wonder whether the story maybe is getting exaggerated to help the opposition," said Quentin Nichols, the county Republican Party's Central Committee chairman.

"But if it did happen, I'd feel terrible and would be more than willing to apologize to this girl. I'd be shocked if a couple of grown men accosted a young lady just on the basis of a bumper sticker. If it happened this way, it's totally inappropriate."

The two men "seemed and acted like they were campaign volunteers, but I didn't see any name tags or anything," Caudell said. Nichols said while the lack of names, combined with the absence of any witnesses, would make checking into Caudell's story difficult, he intends to try.

Although an ardent Kerry supporter whose interest in politics and the presidential race was aroused by a government class last spring, Caudell said she wanted to attend the Bush rally at Voice of America Park simply for the thrill of seeing a presidential visit virtually in her own backyard.

"I always wanted to hear the president speak," Caudell said. "How often is the president in West Chester?"

For Caudell, the ticket episode was not the only time that her preference for Kerry has drawn harsh reactions in heavily Republican West Chester. Her car, which until recently also had "Vote for Kerry" painted on its back window, has been spit on, and the 17-year-old, in her mother's words, frequently has had "single digits waved at her" while driving.

None of those past incidents, though, was as troubling as that which unfolded in the parking lot outside Boehner's office Saturday.

After picking up the tickets, Caudell said, she was confronted by a man who, seeing her getting into a car with a Kerry bumper sticker and the Kerry slogan painted on its rear window, asked whether she was a Kerry supporter. When she replied that she was, the man, by then joined by a second man, called her a terrorist for not supporting Bush, Caudell said.

"I said, 'If a Democrat was in the White House, would you support him?'" Caudell said. "He said, 'No.' And I said, 'Then by your own definition, you're a terrorist, too.'"

To that, Caudell said, the man told the 5-foot-3 cheerleader: "You're pretty snippy for someone so small."

The first man, who Caudell said did most of the talking -- with the second basically echoing his remarks -- grabbed her car door to prevent her from getting in and told her he would not allow her to leave until she surrendered the tickets. When she refused, he tore them from her hand, Caudell said.

Caudell, though, would be the one to get to say "mission accomplished" -- words that have dogged Bush ever since he used them in May 2003 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to describe the war in Iraq.

The president's critics have often said since that the two-word boast, emblazoned on a large sign that Bush used as a backdrop aboard the Lincoln, was premature at best, given that far more Americans have died in Iraq in the past 16 months than prior to May 2003.

After the incident, Caudell drove to her grandmother's house and related what had happened. Her mother's sister-in-law, upon hearing the story, drove her back to Boehner's office and, with Caudell remaining in the back seat, got her a new ticket for the rally.

The rally was "interesting but a little strange," Caudell said. "A lot of it was over the top. One woman came up, shook my hand and said, 'God bless America.' And one of signs I saw said, 'I love the Texas hunk.' I thought, 'what's that got to do with politics?'"

The episode, far from souring Caudell on politics, simply reinforced her convictions and has prompted her to redouble her efforts on Kerry's behalf. She now intends to work phone banks for the Democratic nominee and to hand out literature at the polls on Election Day.

And although her mother, guided by a motherly desire to avoid future problems, washed away the "Vote for Kerry" on her daughter's car window after the incident, Caudell intends to repaint it -- this time, on the inside, "where the Republicans can't get at it."

"If anything, this just showed me how important it is to get involved," Caudell said. "I knew that before, but now I really know it."