Spent most of this evening on the USC Campus facilitating a "Campaign Simulation" for the 90 High School students attending the Junior Statesmen Foundation's Symposium on Los Angeles Politics and Government.
The students broke into groups and were asked to put together campaign plans either for or against 4 ballot measures on the upcoming California statewide ballot. Plus one group represented the Schwarzenegger campaign and one did the Angelides campaign.
They were assigned to come up with key messages, a TV or radio ad, a fundraising plan, a coalition building plan and opposition neutralization -- all in 30 minutes.
Some of the students really reminded me of myself at their age.
Especially the one who described the ballot measure he was working against as "Satan's Initiative."
(I remember when I used to see the world in very black and white terms.)
The funny thing is the initiative he was opposing wasn't even a very emotional or controversial measure on the ballot (like the abortion decision voters will face).
It was an initiative about campaign finance reform!
Anyway, it seemed like something I would have said when I was in high school. (Actually, I probably wasn't witty enough to have said it. John Dunbar would have said it. I would have just repeated it a million times.)
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