Background
Redmond Middle School is a public school for students in grades 6-8. Every year, each grade gets to elect four class officers to represent them in the student government. In 7th grade, I decided that I wanted to run for an 8th Grade Representative position, and I decided to run as a satirical candidate based on the 2016 election.
My Political Platform
My political platform was centered on a vow to keep 5th graders from coming to the middle school as 5th graders. In reality, by the time they came to the school, they would be in the 6th grade. My campaign messaging expressed my political platform, which lampooned national politics, by saying that, “5th graders are planning to come to your school,” “I have a plan to stop them,” and “Just say no.” I built campaign materials around this messaging, including posters, which are shown below.
The Speech
I delivered a speech in front of 300 fellow students and faculty, but one of the teachers interrupted my speech and urged the students not to vote for me.
The Aftermath
After the speech, many people congratulated me and thought that my campaign was funny, but they also indicated that they thought that they weren’t allowed to vote for me. This was not the case, so I rushed back home to make a follow-up video and remind people that I was still in the running, and that they should vote for me.
I used email to send out the video, sending it to some other students who forwarded it on, making it viral. As YouTube was blocked on school computers, I instead found a site on which to host the video where it could be accessed by any student on their school laptops. Within 24 hours, the video reached 1000 views, which is a lot considering that there were only 300 students in my grade. It was also spread between grades and schools, achieving a semi-legendary status in the school district.
The Results
When the results came in, a school administrator, under the condition of anonymity, told me that I had won by a landslide, with the votes being so lopsided that they decided to award all five candidates positions. After receiving the news, I made a video to thank my followers, which I spread using the same methods as the first video.
After this campaign, the school district announced a new policy where campaign speeches must be prerecorded and submitted for review.