After introducing my children to The Great Pumpkin, we watched the bonus Peanuts cartoon, You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown! In this special, Lucy conducts a straw poll and determines very quickly that Charlie Brown is not a candidate for any elected office. This is when she decides that Linus would make a great candidate for student body president.
I'm not sure how this would work--isn't Linus younger than Lucy? Or are they supposed to be twins? Charlie and Lucy are clearly of the same age, and Sally is younger than Charlie, and she zeroes in on Linus--so I figured Linus a step below... so could he really have a viable shot at a position in student government when there's a whole grade or two ahead of him?
This is why Lucy resorts to brow-beating and some very shady electoral activities. For her straw poll, she goes around school with her fist raised, asking students if they'd vote for her brother. All but the opposing candidate say "yes." Then as the election is being held, students must walk up to one of two ballot boxes which sit in front of a large chalkboard where the current vote totals are shown. So here's the first corruption: Revealing election results as they happen, affecting the vote. But what's worse--and here's where we find two items of foul play--Lucy and her gang reach into the ballot box after each vote and announce the selection as the voter is walking away from the box! So not only is one campaign manager running the election, but there is absolutely no anonimity to the contest. And wonder of wonders, Linus wins by just one vote!
Just what are we teaching the next generation?
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