November 2, 2004 - Tuesday
When I picked Harry and Jeremy up from school this afternoon, they asked, as often happens now, where we were going today. I told them we needed to go vote. I think Harry remembers going to the polling place a couple of years ago for the gubernatorial election and I think he has at least a basic understanding of what it's about.

"I want to pick President Bush," he said.
"I don't!" I answered quickly and in a surprised and shocked manner, but I quickly caught myself. Right away I tried to engaged him in conversation about what and how he knew about President Bush. After all, on a very basic level it is wonderful that a young child would have some understanding of and respect for the presidency. My guess is that Harry has probably been listening to the car radio more than I'd known and perhaps there's been some modest election talk at Pre-K.

It took us only a couple of minutes to drive to the polling place and as we parked Harry asked way I didn't want to vote for Bush. He'd obviously heard me before. I mentioned the war that Harry had asked about before when he heard about it on the radio. I mentioned that I didn't think Bush was nice to nature, a topic that Harry is coming enjoy a great deal. I would have gone on, too, but that seemed enough for Harry. He'd become a Kerry supporter, although remembering back to my first cognizant election in 1968, it's not support for the candidate as much as for his dad.

On the way out of the polling place Harry asked if everyone had voted for Kerry. I said, "no" and pointed to the people with Bush signs and the people with Kerry signs. "Some people voted for Bush and some for Kerry and said whoever got more votes would win." I made an analogy to picking a team leader in Pre-K with all the kids getting a vote, trying to hind the importance I actually felt for choosing a president.


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