E for Treasurer

Our daughter E (almost 9) is running for Treasurer of her Elementary School Student Council. It was tough for her and her brother to work out who should run. Strategically it was decided that a 4th grader had a better shot at Treasurer than a 5th grader, so she ran and her brother N is her campaign manager.

After a week as her campaign manager, he decided to file to run against her for Treasurer. He wasn't going to tell her and asked me to sign the document authorizing his campaign. I demurred. I suggested that he think it through, "is this really how a good campaign manager behaves?" I asked.

He murmured something about Karl Rove (I am not making this up) and ran from the room.

When he returned, cooler heads prevailed. He decided to run for Secretary instead, even though at first it seemed boring, but he had heard about when I was Secretary of the student council in college and wrote really funny minutes. He thought he could write really funny minutes too. His friend E.E. could help him.

"Me and E.E. are infamous, Mom," says N.

"Don't you mean famous, N-----?" says his sister.

"No, E-----, I mean infamous. It all stemmed from the incident with the wasabi cashews," he bragged.

The wasabi cashew incident (hereinafter WCI) involved trying to pass wasabi-laden cashews (available in the fruit and nut aisle of Trader Joe's) off as sugared cashews. Apparently some of the reactions were x-treme.

Later, despite his infamy, he decides not to run for Secretary afterall. He throws himself into his sister's campaign. Actually, it might be more accurate to say that I throw myself into the campaign.

I kick into high gear:
"We gotta figure out your base, E-----; You're running against 7 candidates but how many of them have a chance?"

We carve up the numbers, map out a strategy. N---- says this guy D----- is the guy to beat. He's very popular among the 5th graders--he can pull like 50-60 votes. We figure we need 110 votes to win.

N is close with the leading candidate for President's little brother. Together, the brothers arrange a sit-down between their sisters to see if an agreement can be reached. If all goes well, E goes into Friday's election with the potential of serious coattails.

Caught in a perennial struggle for the dignified politician ("E, I don't think you realize the slogan is designed to attract other people to vote for you, it doesn't matter whether you like it.") , E rejected what she judged more frivolous sounding slogans concocted for her like "don't be mean, I'll watch your green" for the least sober slogan we could talk her into:

"EM for Treasurer: Honor, Trust...Fun!

At this point I'm paying more attention to this election than the Special Election to be held November 8th in California.