We've been talking a lot about the upcoming Presidential election at our house.  I've been trying to teach the kids about how voting is an honor, how it's each citizen's responsibility to learn about and listen to the candidates, and how voting is a private decision that each person can make.  Marty has also been talking politics, but his approach is more about creating mini-Republicans.

I've tried to get the kids involved in the election in a few ways.  Martin has been collecting and stapling together all of the political flyers that come to the house to create his own book.  I'm kind of glad that he can't read yet, or he might wonder why there are so many bad things said about each person in his new very special book.

We've also watched the debates together.  For Sophie, the debates worked as a sleeping pill, knocking her out within the first few minutes of each debate.  Martin found them more interesting and listened to much of them, asking questions the whole time.  So many questions, in fact, that I could barely hear the debates myself.  Here is his interpretation of the townhall-style debate. 


In our discussions, the kids have both expressed their preference for the same candidate.  Neither of them have based this opinion on actual political platforms, backgrounds, or experience.  Martin says that he prefers Senator Obama because he is from Chicago.  Sophie likes him because she says "He talks a lot."  While I don't think that they have fully developed arguments for their positions, but I'd bet that some undecided voters have jumped off the fence for less.

For the third election in a row, I've been creating my own forecast for how things will shake out on election night.  Not that anyone is soliciting my opinion, I just like to see if I can call the state before Fox News.  I haven't worked out my final picks yet, but am hoping to have it done soon.  As part of my self-assigned project, I've been looking at maps and past election results.  The kids looked at me with glazed over eyes when I tried to explain it (not an uncommon reaction), but they were really interested in the maps and wanted to make their own.  I printed out U.S. maps and gave them some instructions.

Me: You can color in the maps using red and blue.  Red represents Senator McCain and blue represents Senator Obama.
Sophie: I am going to use my own colors.
Me: Okay, and what do they mean?
Sophie: It means you can't tell me how to do my map.


According to Sophie's projections, it appears that the South-Central part of the U.S. will have heavy voting that is all over the board.  Alaska will also have significant voting, especially in the coastal region, I assume because of their experience in foreign affairs.  Wyoming will have pockets of heavy voting while the rest of the state stays home.  The remaining states show no interest.

Martin's projections show a split between Senators Obama and McCain.  I told him that I would be very surprised if Minnesota, California, Texas, Arizona, and the entire Eastern Seaboard went Republican.  He explained that his red marker worked better and it was easier to cover all those little states at one time.
 

Plus, he said, red is his favorite color.  It's hard to argue with that kind of logic.  It's the exact same approach I use for football picks.