Politics

"Who are you voting for?"

Seven-year-old gent asked this of a little boy on the playground. The little boy was threeish. The dad replied that the little boy would vote for Barack Obama, if he knew who he was. "Oh, yeah. I know who that is," replied my fine young gent. "I might vote for him too." Very earnest. He takes his politics seriously.

Later we drove by a yard full of political signs. "Mom, I'm voting for Jim Torrey for mayor."

"Why?" I asked.

"I dunno."

I asked if it was because of all of the signs. "Well, maybe."

I pointed out that a person with a lot of signs might just be the person with the most money, or the person that everyone else was voting for. Are those good reasons to choose someone to be mayor?

"Well, Mom, I really want to vote for him because he was a good mayor last time, and he's a stronger leader. I want to have a strong leader."

Oh.

Sounds like someone has been listening at the dinner table after all. I thought he was just drawing designs in the sauce on his plate and trying to golf the peas in his soup. Not only that, but he drew his own conclusions from a discussion about the merits of each candidate. Heck, I'd far rather, any day, that he make his own decisions based on information he's gathered than let me tell him how to vote anyway.

He was a little disappointed to learn that he has to wait another 11 years to exercise his civic duty. I did let him drop my ballot into the drop box today, though, which was almost as good even if I didn't vote for his choice of mayoral candidate.

Hmmm. Maybe I should start dinner table debates over the relative merits of keeping one's floor picked up versus always remembering to make one's bed without being reminded.