THE ROAD TO THE PRESIDENCY

I've decided that if presidential candidates had to follow the rules set by my son's kindergarten teacher, then George Bush would have never been elected to office. You see, Mrs. Horlacher - the most wonderful kindergarten teacher on the entire planet (not that I'm biased or anything) has this ingenious method of selecting class presidents. It's not by popular vote - because who wants to start a popularity contest that early in life, but her selection process is much more rigid. If she picks your name out of a hat, you must answer a very important question relating to your personal life and if you get it right, you become the Kindergarten Commander in Chief. If you get it wrong, you lose the eleection and have to memorize your answer so you can come back again the next day to try again.

My son experienced the anguish of losing his first bid for class president this past week when he couldn't answer an extremely important question lobbed at him by Mrs. Horlacher. Spell your last name. I have to admit, spelling Feldman when you're a five year old is not an easy feat, so when my little man came home depressed that he couldn't answer the question correctly, we did what any candidate would do in that situation. Practice, practice, pratice. We must have worked on spelling Feldman at least two dozen times so by the following morning, Dylan was all set to earn his stripes.

When he came home at the end of the day, proudly holding his sign announcing that he was Class Kindergarten President, Dylan was grinning from ear to ear. The real nail biter will be when he's up for re-election and has to recite his home address.

So getting back to George Bush - if his presidential bid had hinged on spelling and pronunciation, things could have been very different this last decade. As for the upcoming election - I think rather than debate the issues, let's subject the candidates to an elementary school spelling bee and geography quiz. Last I checked both Hillary, Obama and Rudy should probably be able to ace those subjects. But Fred Thompson on the other hand, has been having quite a tough time with his mastery of countries so I say, he's out of the running. I think my son's teacher is on to something.