The next president? Ask a kid.

The Christian Science Monitor
"The next president? Ask a kid."
By Lisa Suhay
April 9th, 2008

Although it is very different to analyze an op-ed piece in the newspaper, this one stuck out enough to me that I thought I would share it. The article is written by an author of children's books and her main argument in the article is that kids are more aware of the subtleties of the candidates' personalities and that when many of us get to the voting booth we revert to children and vote based on these visceral emotions that we have about the candidates.

The author decided to interview kids in her town of Norfolk, VA. between the ages of 7-8 and made the observation that her town actually had quite a diverse population. She interviewed 14 different kids and the votes came down to John McCain 8 votes and Barack Obama 6 votes, Hillary Clinton zero votes. She also included sound bites from different kids. One child said about Senator McCain,

He looks really tough. I bet he's scary when he's mad.

Another child said about Hillary Clinton,

It's just not going to be a woman and if it was it'd be Oprah!

The article really bothered me. It was completely reliant on pop psychology and it made broad generalizations based on 14 children.

First of all she never mentioned how strongly children are affected by the opinions of the people around them, as well as the messages given to them in the media. Children are also completely indoctrinated in society's racial and gender stereotypes by the age of 7, unless they are completely sheltered from mainstream culture and society. Her thesis seems to be that when we as voters reach the booth we are,

So overwhelmed by all the conflicting information, slick ads, and responsibility of the action [we] are about to take that [we] just fall back on listening to [our] inner child.

While I agree that strange things happen in the voting booth, I don't think its our emotionally wise and perceptive inner child that comes out, rather its the voice of all the media's framing and the those slick campaign ads that ends up deciding who we vote for, whether we our aware of it or not.

I recognize that her article actually wasn't trying to imply that we vote for the best candidate or even the most honest, but I think that whatever her point was, it was lost in the article. Ms. Suhay ends her article saying,

Instead of putting millions of dollars a week into campaign ads and polls from now until November, maybe candidates should donate a chunk to early education programs. That way everybody wins.

While I don't disagree with the importance of giving money to education, her logic doesn't fit. Essentially she is saying that before the campaign adds and months of touring the country even gets started, the winner of the race is already pre-determined based on how we will react to them on a gut instinct level; those ads have little to no effect at all, so the candidates might as well just give their money to early education programs and hope that will endear them to the little kids? I think she might want to rethink this article.

I am a little disappointed that the Christian Science Monitor picked this article for their op-ed section, although I am not surprised. There are very few women who get chosen to write for the op-ed section of any newspaper, so it is encouraging to see a woman picked, but it is discouraging that the article follows every stereotype about 'women's issues' and women's interest in politics.