As I have rambled about in an earlier post, my daughter (now six) has expressed an interest in running for President. However, it appears that the politics bug has been caught by my middle child, Jared, as he gives a speech today to secure his nomination for the vice-presidency of his school’s Student Council. In an amazing bit of understanding, Jared told me that he knows that the Council doesn’t have any real power, but he wants to run anyway – but not if he has to lie to get the job.
This child truly scares me at time with how perceptive he is and he’s nine.
All of which, of course, reminds me of a ceditra entry I made on April 4 of this year when I let my fingers do the walking all over The Washington Post of that same day and it landed on page 6 of the Metro section where I saw the headline….
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GRAY’S RUNNING
That was the headline from the Local Opinion section of the paper under the portion labelled “Topic A: The D.C. Mayor’s Race”.
Six local folk give their thoughts over the decision of DC Councilman Vincent Gray to throw this hat into the ring and run against Adrian Fenty to be mayor of the District.
I do understand why people enter politics. The reasons are many – desire to do good, desire to give something back, desire to leave a mark, desire for power – and individual to each candidate.
I can’t say which of the above reasons Gray publicly states and privately holds as to why he wants to be Mayor. However, I can point to the reason as to why I never entered politics – I didn’t want to give speeches.
When I was growing up and I watched Presidents and Senators and Governors speak, I was under the impression that those politicians actually wrote their own speeches. At that time, I did not like crafting words. While I was marginally okay with delivering words, I really did not like putting in the effort of coming up with the words.
In addition, my political experience in school didn’t help out. I lost a Student Council race in 3rd grade, I lost a 7th grade election as my logical, rational speech fell flat against a comedic speech (and my posters were defaced), and I lost a high school freshman Council election as my comic speech killed…but I was a victim of fraud as my name was misspelled on the ballot. What also doomed me in my quest to win the freshman Council election was that I was running against a football player.
Politics, I learned in ninth grade, is akin to a popularity contest.
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Back to today and I wish my boy well and hope he comes away with a different outcome (i.e., a win) than I did and that he comes away with a different attitude towards politics (i.e., less cynical).
[…] talked about him before (see here and here for examples), but my middle child (and youngest son), Jared, continues to provide me with […]