Troy Holmes

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The political season at Richard M. Nixon Elementary has drawn to a close with much excitement, and I have emerged victorious. It all started about a month ago, when our teacher came up with a sweet new project. It was almost as cool as our last project, when we got to pick our class mascot. We choose The Fighting Cocker Spaniels. We named our school after Nixon’s beloved dog, Checkers. We all had a lot of fun with that project, and this new project was going to be just as awesome. Our teacher decided to hold a class election to see who the class president of our third grade class was going to be. She wanted to teach us how real elections worked and how fun politics could be. She wasn’t wrong. It was totally fun. However, it was a hard fought victory and I give most of the credit to my daddy, who taught me everything I know about politics. First of all he gave me a sweet political name. My name is Clinton Carter and politics are my game. With a name like that how can I not be class president? Also right before I decided to run for class president me and daddy watched all of season one of House of Cards on Netflix. Francis Underwood is my hero and I will serve my time in office with his teachings at my disposal.

 

Now I know what everyone is thinking, how the heck did I pull it off? Especially, how did I do it with the field of great boys and girls running? Well I’ll tell you it didn’t come easy. I really had to work for it. For example, let’s look at Billy Wilder. He was out of the gates faster than anyone of us. I thought he was going to be my biggest competition. After his speech about his homework to recess ratio, and how he was going to implement that strategy, I thought I was done for. I mean he was promising that for every hour of homework that is assigned during school, the teacher is required to give thirty minutes of recess to go along with it. Shoot, I would have even voted for him, but then all hell broke loose with the “cooties” controversy. Little Billy didn’t stand a chance. A photograph emerged the next day in all of the funny papers in our school newsletter. Billy was caught in the act. He was caught in the act of holding hands with a first grader. Now, don’t even get me started with little Billy having a relationship with a younger girl, but that’s beside the point. We all know first graders have cooties. How can we trust a boy that lets cooties into our school? We can’t and little Billy was forced to bow out of the race.

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This brings me to my next victim, Timmy Markson. Now Timmy was out of his league from the get go. He did so poorly during the debates that he didn’t have a chance. During the entire debate, Timmy was playing angry birds. He didn’t even look up to answer the questions. I mean he was given soft balls from the moderator. One of his questions was, “Do you think Dinosaurs are cool?” I mean come on, how do you not answer yes to that, everyone thinks they are cool. I wish I got that question; I woulda knocked it out of the park. Instead he said that dinosaurs were last year’s fad and nobody likes them anymore. Angry birds messed it up for Timmy. Why does that game have to be so gosh darn fun? Oh well, I won’t miss him.

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I will miss Suzy. It’s a shame what happened to her. She was a great candidate and the smartest girl in class. She gets straight A’s in every quiz we have ever had. I had no idea how she did it. She dominates in the class room and then kicked all of our butts in kickball during recess. Suzy has it all. Then the unthinkable happened. It turns out best-in-class Suzy was cheating on the vocab quiz all along. This scandal sent shock waves through our school and Suzy got detention for a week straight. She swears she didn’t do it, but the answer guide was found in her backpack. She was caught red handed. With her serving time, she was forced to bow out of the race as well. What a shame, maybe she can change her image and run next year for Vice President.

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The game of politics at Nixon Elementary is cutthroat and not meant for the faint of heart. With that scandal on everyone’s minds we needed a little comedic relief in the race. Thank goodness Doug ran and gave that to us. I don’t even know why Doug even ran for office. Maybe he wanted it on his middle school applications or maybe his mommy made him run. He gets picked last every single time we play kickball. I even feel sorry for the kid. He seems like a good kid, just a little off. His allergies didn’t help things either. It’s kind of hard to go table by table during lunch to try and get votes when you’re allergic to peanuts and you’re lactose intolerant. He could only go to the no-peanut tables and wasn’t allowed to kick back and have a milk with his future constituents. It’s important to the voter to feel as one with the candidate, and when he can’t even have a milk with a boy, it’s hard to get votes.

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With all of those candidates out of the way it was down to just two. It was me, Clinton Carter, against Amy Smith. The “battle of the decade” as everyone was calling it, and it was proving to be a tough battle. Amy was solid on the girls vote. She was also crucial in the band and orchestra vote, as she played multiple instruments. She plays the clarinet and the violin and is extremely talented in both. Luckily for me, I was able to secure the foreign students vote as I am able to speak a little Spanish. Thank goodness my nanny speaks Spanish, or else the Latino kids would probably have gone with the pretty girl Amy. Also I was able to keep the jock vote as my legs and arms did the talking for that. I am the best in the class in dodge ball and kickball and I am always either a captain or the first one picked. My skills on the field alone, I think, give me the upper hand.

 

Then the third debate happened. It was the last debate in contractually obligated agreement and was in a town hall format. The debate was held right before nap time as we all sat down and discussed the issues our school was facing. I was knocking all the questions out of the park as my stance on homework, recess, and the all-important stances on cutters in the lunch line were solid. I was even bold enough to put my foot down on class marriages. I told the students that if our class bunny and our class turtle really love each other, who am I to say they cannot get married. I was fearful that most of the students would think that stance was too strong and that I should have left that issue to after the election, but I couldn’t do it. I had to say what I felt. I was glad I did because everyone loved it and soon after the debate a formal marriage between Michelangelo and Hoppers was planned.

 

We were pretty even in the debate until it was Amy’s turn. It seemed like a simple question but the wording of the question is what messed her up. All she had to say was “what people believe and do in their own home is their own business.” But she didn’t say that; she decided to tell people what she really thought, and in front of the entire school she said she still believed in Santa. I mean really come on? Santa? We are in the third grade, we can’t believe in Santa anymore. That’s for little kids. Amy showed the voters who she really is and that’s someone who still believes in Santa. I mean we all love presents, and do I know for sure that Santa doesn’t exist? No, I don’t know, and nobody really knows for certain, but you can’t say it out loud because everyone will make fun of you. And that’s exactly what everyone did. They laughed her right out of the class room, and for the next couple of days she called in sick to school. She was officially done, and I was officially the new class President of the Great Fighting Cocker Spaniels.

 

Like I said earlier, it wasn’t easy to win the Presidency. It was a lot of hard work. Do you think all of these scandals happened out of the blue? Just like I saw on television, I had to fix the situation. Did I take the “cooties” picture and send it into the funny papers? Did I give a student all of my Halloween candy to ask Amy if she believed in Santa? Did I rig the vocabulary quiz and placed the answer guide in her backpack setting Suzy up to fail? Did I buy Timmy the new Angry Birds and install it on his phone? Politics is not a game you can play clean. As we say here at Richard M. Nixon Elementary, show me the proof and I will answer those questions.

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The End