Everyone Votes

Maggie had homework last night. She had to decide who she was going to vote for for President. Their class is having an election today. Maggie doesn’t really have any political leanings that I am aware of. But her homework was to learn the names of the candidates and study the pictures to figure out who was who. We didn’t study issues, just names and faces. Believe me for Maggie and her classmates, that is abstract enough. Frankly, that’s probably what 75% of voters do anyway.

We worked on the names first. I didn’t want her to just pick a face. She had to know the names too. I asked her if she was going to vote for each candidate separately. She signed an emphatic NO! to Barack Obama and YES! to John McCain, YES! To Ralph Nader and YES! Cynthia McKinney (Green).I asked her again and she reversed it.

No wonder the phone has been ringing so much around here. We have one of those undecideds right here in our own house.

We kept working on it until she had one consistent yes and several nos, rather than the other way around. Amazingly, she chose the same candidate as her Dad and I did ;-). The fact that I told her she was going to have to live at school if she chose the other one has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. No influence here.

Then we went to the pictures that the teacher had printed out for the students. I laughed out loud when I saw them. Nader was missing completely. Obama was smiling and comfortable looking – a professional shot on its own page. McKinney and McCain shared a page. But you couldn’t look at both at the same time because one shot would be upside down McKinney was smiling with an American flag behind her. John McCain was tugging at his collar, as though he was either embarrassed or really hot. I’m not sure that was intentional, but only one candidate looked presidential.

No influence there, either. Ha!