My Third Grader on Presidential Politics

My daughter, who is eight and in the third grade, often likes to ask me who I am voting for. As we have heard in the news during the past few weeks, third graders are particularly interested and very astute when it comes to the election. And while it might seem impossible that a third grader can grasp the gravity of the issues of this election, its historical significance, and the way in which it has deeply polarized our country, the third grade view on the election is at the very least incredibly entertaining.

As I said before, my daughter loves to ask, every few days or so, if I will be choosing McCain or Obama. For the past few weeks I have answered with cryptic - "Who do you think I'm voting for?" My daughter's reactions to this vary. Sometimes she says, "Daddy is voting for John McCain" and sometimes she says, "If you vote for Barack Obama he will make you pay higher taxes" and sometimes it's, "Grandmom is voting for Obama." I usually dodge the question by allowing her to refocus on other adults and who their pick for President is.

Yesterday I sucked it up and answered the question, "I said I will be voting for Obama." And instead of telling me all about all the plans of the other registered voters in our family, my daughter said something amazing. She said, "I know, its because of Sarah Palin!" She was exactly right - dead on - but how? Curious and stunned I asked "Why do you think that?" And my incredibly intuitive daughter responded, "Its because you don't like her. Why don't you like her Mommy?" Which is a very difficult thing to answer, when you are talking to an eight year old,who is specifically discouraged from saying not so nice things about people. While I stumbled around with a pretty pathetic answer (its hard to condense forty-five years of feminism, gut instinct, personal views on foreign policy, the economy, our national reputation, and religious and moral beliefs into an age appropriate answer - especially when I have struggled articulating it beyond sighs and expletives in adult conversation). Luckily, my daughter gave me an out. She said, "Its because she locked herself in the grocery store after it was closed, right?" I was so shocked and confused by this statement, I had not heard this bit of puzzling news, that I blurted out "What?!" "Nora, told me that Sarah Palin locked herself in the grocery store after it was closed" said my daughter, "doesn't that seem so dumb?" she followed. Dumb on Palin's behalf, not Nora's - that much was clear. I tried for more details, but my daughter didn't have anything else. All she knew was what a fourth grader had told her, that Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential candidate had spent some extra time in the produce aisle.

Later, I investigated this information. A google search on "Sarah Palin grocery store" produced very little, but I did find a "your momma" style joke, on someone's blog no less, in which Sarah Palin is so dumb that when she was locked in a grocery store she starved. As not-clever as
that joke is, something about it resonated with the elementary school set. As any kid will tell you, being in the grocery store sucks, and spending extra time there is ridiculous.

I explained to my daughter that what she had hear about Sarah Palin was a simply not true. She considered this information for a moment and then said, "Its too bad John McCain couldn't just be by himself - and then we could all vote for him mommy."

And with that, a third-grader captured the sentiments of countless Republicans.