My son is undecided still in this election

I never thought politics would seep down so low, even to the elementary school level. My son came home last week talking about the election. One of his classmates told him that he was voting for Obama because "McCain was going to start a war with Russia and then all the world would be at war and there would be nuclear bombs everywhere." With saving the world from destruction on his mind, the boy announced that he was definitely voting for Obama.

Where's a parent to begin when faced with a statement like that from an impressionable ten year old? Well, I assured him that if Russia wanted to start a war that they probably didn't care who was President and that nobody was going to be dropping nuclear weapons on anybody else. Then I tried to explain taxes on small businesses, how it would effect his dad, and why I was voting for McCain.

Today my boy got to play McCain on the school announcements! He read a little statement and wore a face mask. Tomorrow the students get to hold an election and vote for their favorite candidate. I didn't see the speech that he gave before this afternoon. It wasn't BAD but it was elementary-ish. I would have re-written it slightly if I had seen it beforehand.

Hi everyone. My name is John McCain and I am the 2008 Republican Presidential nominee. I am 72 years old. My running mate is Sarah Palin who is the Governor of Alaska. I was born in Panama, and attended the United States Naval Academy. I am a senator from Arizona. I was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and was captured by the North Vietnamese. I have a wonderful wife named Cindy and 4 beautiful children named Meghan, John, James, and Bridget. In High School I was a Varsity wrestler which I think helped me through the 5 and a half years that I was a prisoner of war. I have great ideas to change our society and make it a better place for everyone. I'd like to be your next President.
Please vote for me!

Tomorrow is the day the students vote. J-Boy was telling me how he was still confused frustrated about who to vote for! He thinks what I said about McCain was very good but apparently he still finds his friend's statement about the Russian war very persuasive too!

Well, as an loving parent, I tried to reveal unto the small lad the second great mystery of the world- politics. I began by explaining the purpose of government, to provide a safe and stable infrastructure so businesses and people can thrive, but I had to backtrack and define infrastructure for him. I told him that making a decision on an election meant research, reading, and educating yourself, none of which him or any of his friends had ever done. I didn't expect him to know who to vote for! His friends were just listening to their parents and, though that's definitely a good thing, when he gets old enough to vote, I expect him to do his own research and not just vote because of what I was voting. This was suddenly a very deep discussion.

I hope that I've given him some ammo with which to make playground politics discussions non-stressful. He also said that the teachers really, really want everybody to participate in the vote tomorrow. I hope my assurances that he doesn't have to "make a choice" and I surely wasn't going to find fault in his indecision help him not to worry. His problems will probably end tomorrow. Us adults get to stress for another week.