Political Lessons
With all of the talk about this year’s presidential election, I’m reminded about my first experiences with politics. The following are two of those experiences.
Experience #1: Being that it was an election year, my elementary school teacher decided that it would be a good opportunity for the class to have a mock election. Rather than delving into the political issues and the major differences between the presidential candidates, she passed out three photographs; one of the republican, democrat, and independent candidates. The teacher explained that we were to look at the photos and then place our vote on a sheet of paper.
I had no information to base my vote on, and none of the candidates looked familiar to me. I examined the photographs and thought that the man in photo #3 resembled my father in a kind-of-sorta way, so I decided to vote for him. I made my vote and proudly put my ballot in the box.
The teacher counted all the votes. She then raised photograph #1 and asked the class to clap their hands if they had voted for him. About half of the class clapped. Then she raised photo #2, and again about half the class clapped. Then she raised photo #3, and no one clapped. The room was silent. Heads turned to see who had voted for #3. The teacher than said that someone had voted for him, because he had one vote. I sat quietly in my chair, looking around the class for that one person just like everyone else was. I hated myself for not clapping.
Experience #2: My fourth grade class was having a class election. We were to nominate and vote for a class president, vice-president, and treasurer. I and two other classmates were nominated for class president. I had never been a class president before, so I thought it would be something that I would like to do. The other two nominees for the office were a guy named Chris, who I didn’t know, and a girl named Lori, who just happened to be the prettiest girl in the class and who I couldn’t take my eyes off of.
The perfect scenario was that I would win the presidency and Lori would be my vice president. Who knows, with such a scenario, she might finally realize that I exist and she may actually speak to me. While I was contemplating my perfect scenario, Chris approached me and suggested that I decline my nomination, proclaim that I’m voting for him, and then when he wins he would nominate me for vice president. Despite my perfect scenario, I agreed. Chris handily won the election over Lori. Then it was time to nominate the vice president. I looked to Chris as he raised his hand to nominate me. He stood up before the class and loudly nominated Lori for class vice president.