Election Day

For all of you walking around with your round red "I voted" stickers, know that I've beat you to it. I voted weeks ago, and no one gave me a sticker at all.

It's good I've gotten that out of the way, because now I need to worry how to explain the election process in German.  My German teacher, who is into politics and likes to ask me about Obama, told me that I need to give a speech about the U.S. election during Wednesday's class. Everyone in the class has to do a speech sometime soon, it's just that they get to choose their topics and mine was dictated to me. They get to talk about things like what to see in Hamburg, or how holidays are celebrated in Iran. I have to talk about the electoral college.

Asking me to talk about election politics in German is like asking a first-grader to talk about evolution. I can just imagine my nephew Jaden, my closest first-grade relation, giving a presentation on this topic.
JJ, tell us about natural selection.
"No."
Come on, please? I know you know a lot about it. 
"Well, it's good."
Why is it good?
"Some animals, they are still alive and have babies. Some don't."
The end. Let's go play with Legos.

This is the level of eloquence I can achieve in advanced beginner German.

I've made some notes about how I can explain things like military spending and health insurance mandates in German. Considering that none of my classmates have more advanced German vocabularies than I do, I am trying to boil these ideas down to first grade words that we already know. They may not really care about the election anyway, and they won't laugh at me if I screw up. We have a lot of patience with each other. So I shouldn't worry about how to say 'economic stimulus' in German, right?

I will let you know how things go. Until then, take a lesson from a first grader and wear that sticker proudly on your shirt (or your forehead, or the back of your hand) today.