Political aspirations

No, not Arnold. Not me either. I'm talking about that very first exposure to practical and organized politics: Student Council. Hall monitor and roll call runner were small potatoes, and the playground pecking order paled in comparison to the enormity of this decision unceremoniously thrust upon thousands of unprepared freshmen.

Composed of the popularity contest winners, the brainiacs who needed it to pad their college resume's, and the pie-in-the-sky dreamers who actually thought they would be able to make changes in an adult-dominated system, the Student Council never interested me. I just couldn't see the import of whether we should have both coke and pepsi machines in the school and other such trivial crapola.

What got me started thinking about this is that Mookie* has been approached to run for Student Council, and apparently has some rather wide-spread support. She acknowleges that it would look good on college applications, but doesn't seem all fired up at the prospect. She's too cynical and sarcastic to take it seriously, and despite what I said above, it should be taken seriously precisely because it's the first exposure to real-world politics. Ignore the results and study the process in action.

Why Mookie? It seems that there are some subtle things at work here, beyond the generalizations I made earlier about who runs and why. She's not cliquish, so she doesn't automatically get the popularity vote, but that group knows her from her work with Homecoming and Drama projects. Even the groups she doesn't hang around with (or can't stand) are at least on nodding terms in the hallway because she makes it a point to be civil to everyone. Her attitude is that she doesn't have to like someone to work with them on school projects, and I like to think she learned that from me.

She does have that snotty and sly sense of humor though, which apparently is part of her appeal. She apologizes to people who have no idea that she insulted them just a few minutes before, because they didn't get the joke. It's kind of like Dennis Miller running for President under the "I'm OK, You're Romulus or Remus (not that it matters)" slogan.

She really has no time or interest in this right now, but if she did, I'd suggest making her campaign slogan "I Am Not A Crook." Once elected, find out who voted for her, round them up and shoot them. Because nothing is more dangerous than the arrogant intelligentsia.

Oui.

* Mookie is my teenaged daughter and blogger-at-large. She's the last one at home, her older brother and sister already having escaped the asylum flown the coop left the nest.

Posted by Ted at October 9, 2003 05:23 AM
Category: Square Pegs