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Early Election Results

Partly to further purpose of cultural education and internationalization, and partly as an outlet for my electoral frustrations, I had the 3rd graders at Saroma Junior High vote for the US President yesterday.  The 14-15 year old rural northern Japan demographic could turn this election.  First, I handed them an information sheet, which introduced the two candidates as well as new words.  Party, Age, Family, Hobbies, Slogan.  I left out policy matters.  Even if the English wasn’t too difficult, I doubted they would much care.  Then they did a fill-in-the-blank paragraph using the new words they had learned.  After, we spent 15 minutes watching some campaign commercials from both sides (stupid ones from both sides too), a few minutes of the third debate, a few minutes of the SNL parody of the third debate, and an “Obama Quest” Daily Show clip.

Resultssmall

Then they voted.  Across both third grade classes, Obama won in a landslide: 49 votes to 11 for John McCain.  That’s a 64-point win!  I think we can all feel relieved from this new poll that Obama is in good position for victory.

In addition to their vote, I asked for a short explanation of their decision.  Essentially an exit poll.  McCain wins on experience, and Obama wins on youth and coolness, with McCain’s age a big deciding factor for this demographic.  Here are some of the more interesting ones:

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