Those of you that know me, know that although I am very outspoken when it comes to politics, I will never, ever become truly involved. I like to keep up with current events, and I will make my own commentary on said events, but I have no plans to ever get involved in politics at all, not even vote.
That being said, it came as a complete shock this week when I was elected to my state's House of Representatives.
OK, I know, a little explanation is in order.
Every Monday, I have my American Government class. This Monday, we held a mock election, to demonstrate how funding works in an election. Depending on what we spent our money on, we would get a certain number of votes.
The class was split into two groups; liberals and conservatives, with moderates being split up to make the groups an even number. The teacher explained the activity, and handed out sheets of paper, telling us the basic background information, and handing out a sheet of paper with the amount of money we had, and how much each thing cost. Each group was given $50,000, and twelve (hypothetical) weeks in which to spend it. Our job was to figure out the budget. The things we could spend our money on were, as an example, TV ads ($750/ea), District-wide mailings ($3,000/ea), etc.
Now, the teacher said, each group must choose a candidate. The candidate will be the final voice in the decisions, but they should listen to the rest of the group.
The guy sitting next to me (I'll call him Jim) pointed to me and said, "I nominate her. She's smart." He then turned to me, and asked, "What's your name, again?" I told him. "Yeah, I nominate [Darth_Indy]."
I asked if anyone, anyone else would like to be the candidate. Nope. I was voted unanimously as the candidate (When was the last time you saw THAT in a primary election?).
My group then set about putting together the budget. I won't go into details, but there was a marked lack of communication between our 'accountant' (the guy who kept track of everything) and the rest of the group - he got over half of the numbers wrong (we wanted 1,000 yard signs, for example, but he put down zero). By a twist of fate, however, he used up nearly all of our budget on one of the biggest vote grabbers.
Once we were done, we were told the vote values of each item, and tallied them up.
My Competitor: Around 36,000 votes
Me: Around 47,000 votes
In politics, that is what is known as a landslide.
As of next Wednesday, I will have a discreet PayPal account set up for brib... *ahem* gifts and donations.
Now, if you need me, I'll be in my private jet.
1 comment:
You know...it is too bad that the PC game world doesn't have a role-playing game based on climbing the political staircase to office. A SIMS-type game. You would probably kick-butt--honestly, without cheating. Well, some would say, that would be no fun. But I bet you would enjoy it.
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