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It’s All Over But the Voting

sn_ts_101408_fixed.jpgThe kids have spoken. And the kids are hardly ever wrong. In fact, they haven’t been wrong in 40 years.

The Scholastic Presidential Election Poll results are in: Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote, to 39 percent for Republican nominee Senator John McCain.
The poll was open to kids from grades 1 to 12 in Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines. Almost 250,000 (a quarter of a million) kids voted by paper ballot or online at www.scholastic.com/news. The poll closed on October 10.
Since 1940, the results of the student vote have mirrored the outcome of the general election all but twice: In 1948, kids voted for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry S. Truman. In 1960, more students voted for Richard M. Nixon than for John F. Kennedy. In 2000, a majority of student voters chose George W. Bush, mirroring the Electoral College result, but not the result of the popular vote.

I guess the business about Obama being an Arab terrorist who associates with Williams Ayers and Reverend Jeremy Wright haven’t filtered down to grade school yet. Or maybe it’s just that these kids are the only ones in America smart enough not to give a shit.

Here’s my question, though: What kind of crazy kids in 1960 would actually select grumpy old Nixon over good-looking, charming Kennedy? I blame Eisenhower. And Palin.

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Comments

Grade school kids haven't been to college, where you truly learn to reject everything your parents believe in. ;) The kids' poll is probably a decent mirror of who their parents are voting for.

"Or maybe it’s just that these kids are the only ones in America smart enough not to give a shit."

LOL!

If you're too young a boy to like girls and they're still cootie-ridden monsters, you can't relate to JFK. If you were too young a girl to feel moisture in your panties, of course you can't feel the power of JFK. And then you turn to the clearest grandfather figure, unless it's way too creepy to look at.

If you're as drunk as I you won't give a fuck about children anyway.

I think the performance of the kids' vote is more of a reflection on the adult voter than on the kids. Basically it says to me that the average adult voter has no better an understanding of politics and is no more resistive to pandering and cheap rhetorical tricks than kids.

Or maybe three elle is right and they're just saying what their parents say anyway.