Hi there boys and girls!  It’s Annie here, for another day counting down to the Election.  Do you remember what an Election is?  That’s right!  It’s when all the grown-ups get the chance to choose who they think should be the president of the whole country.  It’s sort of like when you’re in class, and your teacher asks how many people want to play kickball, and how many people want to play dodgeball.  And you LOVE kickball so much, and you raise your hand so high when it’s your turn to vote, but because more people voted for dodgeball you don’t get to play kickball.  You’re stuck getting pegged in the face by that big kid who doesn’t play by the rules when the teacher’s back is turned.

Annie doesn’t much like dodgeball.

So how do you keep from getting stuck with dodgeball for four years?  You can try some different Tactics.  A Tactic is a way to accomplish what you want.  Obviously, you have to get more people to vote for kickball than dodgeball.  One Tactic is that you can try to talk to everyone else in your class to make them understand why you think kickball is better (though the big kid is probably trying another Tactic of telling all the kids that you’re stinky and that if they vote for kickball, that makes them terroritsts).  Another Tactic the big kid might try is getting the pretty girl in class to be on his side, so that everyone else will vote his way.  Of course, she doesn’t really know much about kickball or dodgeball, but she sure is pretty, so sometimes it’s not easy to reason with the other kids.  Some of the kids might try the Tactic of not voting so noone gets mad at them, or because they don’t particularly like either game.  Or the big kid might create a big diversion - like set a fire in the gymnasium so that no one will pay attention to why they’re voting.  But, if all the kids who like kickball better than being repeatedly pelted in the face actually take the chance to vote for kickball when the teacher asks, then they can win! 

So really, sometimes, all you can do is try to remind people how unpleasant it has been to be pelted with red dodgeballs over and over and over again for the last eight years, and maybe they’ll remember how much they like to play with the blue kickballs.