I wasn't going to go negative. She wasn't going to push me into that kind of race for Mayor. All I had to do was stay on issues and everything would work out in the end. But she knew she had the numbers, and she flaunted this every chance she got. That smug, red windbreaker wearing sixth grader, someday she'd get hers.

The fifth and sixth grades of my elementary school were going to take part in a simulated city run by ourselves. The jobs were split up half and half between our school and another one from somewhere else in Kansas City. Most of the jobs were delegated by a painstaking review of individual student grades and behavior, but since our school got to choose the mayor of the Student Town, there was an election. As the fifth grade nominee, I promised my constituents a return to the basic moral fabric of ideas we fifth graders were proud of.

My problem wasn't really the sixth grade nominee. Nope, for some reason, fifth and sixth graders are very partisan with their voting (this is a national phenomenon, not localized to Kansas City specifically). The Vegas line on the election was five to one that I'd lose, mostly because there were about ten more sixth graders than fifth graders. It was hard to get crossover votes because, as a sixth grader, would you want to be led by a fifth grader? And there was that whole sticky chicken-or-egg-abortion thing that happened with the incubator. Not that any of that was my fault or anything, but it did happen in my jurisdiction.

My opponent was one of those slightly homely and silent types. In later life, she became a goth disciple, mumbling Joy Division songs as she floated through the halls. In this election, though, she was merely a puppet nominee for the powerful sixth grade syndicate. They'd held serve in school elections for longer than the school had records for that sort of thing. Her debate style was simple: she pointed out that I was a fifth grader.

It was the sort of closed-minded slander that really spoke to the heart of her followers. And I couldn't refute these charges, because they were, for the most part, true. So I tried to get that emotional swing by promising that I would act like a sixth grader if elected.

Unfortunately, my remarks began some grumbling in my own camps that I was selling out the fifth grade platform (which stated unequivocally that I would push the fifth grade agenda of being freedom loving fifth grades with no concessions to the other side). I lost a whole section of followers, led by my long-time nemesis (and fellow Math Fair participant) Clarence. Clarence was a preternaturally smart kid who didn't believe that I had the experience to be mayor of Student Town. It was because of the work of Clarence that the die in my campaign was fatally cast.

Oh sure, there was the whole bikini poster in the boy's bathroom--much of the fifth grade consortium wondered if I had the sex appeal to beat such a base threat. I did not, and my campaign fell further into disarray.

I tried to stop the bleeding by getting a couple of student groups to sponsor an extra emergency debate right before the election proper, but my opponent was able to scratch the talk off the table. And my last ditch poster effort, clearly stating the differences between myself and my opponent (centering around the fact that I took many sixth grade classes, so in a way I had just as much experience as my older competition) did not go over well with the common voter.

In the end, I lost by almost fifteen votes. It was a crushing defeat, considering there were only about sixty voters in all. I made my tearful concession speech and walked off the school stage a little down in the dumps.

Then my teacher told me I had to pick another job to work at in Student Town. I was leaning very heavily toward the video arcade manager job, but then I noticed that Clarence was scheduled to be the vice president of the bank. Only the president of the bank got paid more than the v.p., and it would be especially gratifying to know that the boy who partially engineered my defeat would feel the pain of rejection and disappointment.

So I spent most of my day in Student Town approving loans for area businesses, getting a nice chunk of fake Student Town money, and happy in the thought that Clarence was clipped down to janitor at the Student Town Tastee Freeze franchise.

Matt Worley believes that the fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans is the amount of pain and humiliation one suffers while in school.