Trying to explain our electoral process to an eight-year-old is like trying to help your child make sense of why the boys who like you in the classroom pick on you during recess.

It’s all a bit inscrutable.

What’s even harder is trying to help a second-grader grasp that while the election coverage that mommy is addicted to has been going on since before she started this school year, that things won’t be over until she’s settled into a third-grade routine later this year.

“But WHY?” is my daughter’s continual response when I try to explain why we don’t have a new President yet.

PunditGirl: “But who won last night?”

PunditMom: “Well, Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and John McCain for the Republicans.”

PG: “So which one is President?”

PM: “Well, no one yet because all the other states have to vote first, then we all vote again.”

PG (with eight-year-old scowl): Well … then who’s ahead? Who has the most points?”

PM: “It doesn’t work like that. First we have to see who gets the most points for each side, then those two candidates get to talk some more, through the summer, about who they think would do a better job and then we get to vote again, but not until November.”

PG (with visible shock and disgust): “You mean we won’t know who has the most points until after I’m in third grade?”

Kind of puts the ridiculously long election season in perspective, doesn’t it?

And the idea of a candidate dropping out of the presidential race is a ludicrous one for my daughter, as well. In her mind, if you get in, you stay in until someone wins.

When I told my daughter yesterday that Mommy’s first choice, John Edwards, had dropped out of the race, even though she’s supporting Hillary (her theory being that if you’re a girl, you should vote for the girl!), she was horrified.

PG: “But Mom, he can’t know the future! What if all of a sudden more people start to vote for him? Then won’t he be sorry?”

Sort of like when you’re playing Sorry! – you never know who’s going to win, because fortunes can turn on a dime.

Ah, young optimism! I need to get me some of that!

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