Campaign '08

The campaigning was fierce but the people have spoken.  Campaign '08 is finally over (ya, don't we wish!)  Of course I am talking about the student council elections at Ronald Reagan School.  Both twins decided to run for office, Derek for Treasurer, and Dylan for V.P.  The boys told me that they were pushing for an all LDS ticket: Tre' for president, Dylan for vice president, Bailey or Danielle for secretary, and Derek for treasurer.

It got down and dirty at the twins campaign headquarters - our kitchen table.  It was a grassroots effort, the whole family worked for the cause, especially the candidates,  and yours truly, their campaign manager/mother.

It was not easy being the campaign manager, as I am not as in touch with the 9 year old base as I should be.  I learned quickly that Campaign '08 is not about the issues, or the personalities, but is completely and solely about the STICKERS!  Campaigns are won, or lost on stickers, apparently.

Here is Dylan's sticker.  They were very popular the first day, but by the second day my little candidates informed me that the polls came out that would-be voters were bored with these stickers and wanted to shake things up with NEW stickers.  I told them to tell their demanding constituents "tough."  Looking back, that might have been a fatal strategic blunder.  But I was not going to design new stickers.  I thought these were very cool, and the kids could deal with the same stickers for the whole length of the campaign season - one week.

This was Dylan's poster.  It said  "How do you spell Vice President?  D-Y-L-A-N."  Unfortunately the posters didn't have much of a role since all posters could only be hung in the MPR so kids couldn't destroy them, but the kids couldn't see them there either.

Derek made his stickers out of old monopoly money.  Once again, his stickers were popular, especially the $500 bills (we saved those for the swing voters - and the $1 bills went to the non-voting 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders).  But after a day or two, the voting public were crying for new stickers.  Our timing was just wrong in this campaign. We started out strong, but then support waned as the week went on.  We should have held back, and flooded the public with the cool stickers at the very end, a Thursday Surprise. Hey, I'm still learning here.

This was Derek's poster.  it said "Get in the Game.  Vote Derek for Treasurer."  I thought it was pretty cool.  Too bad nobody saw it.

I had other ideas besides stickers and a few posters.  After all, I was elected to student council several times as a kid.  My campaign strategy - lollipops.  I passed out lollipops that looked like stop signs that said "STOP vote for Shelly SIGNS."  I used the same strategy every year.  It always worked.  But times have changed, and campaign reform has been put in place.  Now bribery is frowned upon, so we had to run a clean, sticker only campaign.  Bummer.  "Dirty", or should I say "sticky" candy-based, campaigns are so much more fun - and effective.

On Friday, the boys gave their campaign speeches.  They each took about 15 seconds.  Don't we wish politicians would follow their lead with super short speeches.  Dylan finished his speech with a high kick saying "I will fight for you."  Derek was going to throw out monopoly money to the audience, but the principal put the nix on that idea.  But another kid did threw money.  He must have had the principal in his back pocket.  

In the end, after the polls closed and the stickers had all been thrown away, both Derek and Dylan lost.  Happily, a few on their ticket did win.  Congrats Tre' and Danielle!  We are so glad our voices will be heard up in the student council.     

We are already putting together our strategy for Campaign '09.