Election Update: Bobblehead Bonanza

“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”

  

— José Maria de Eça de Queiroz

As you may recall from September 14th's Election Fever post, I agreed to be Carlos' campaign manager in connection with his bid to run against Marie and Walter in the 2014 FV2 mayoral election.  Since Carlos is not on the ballot and there is no way for people to actually vote for him, I circulated a petition to Zynga in hopes of getting enough signatures to make this happen.

Despite a week of heavily advertising on Facebook that we desperately needed signatures on the petition to get Carlos on the ballot, I found that only 40 of my 534 Facebook friends had actually signed the petition. So in hopes of discovering why over 92% of my friends had yet to sign the petition, I created a very sophisticated and scientific "Venn diagram."  I have put "Venn diagram" in quotes because I'm not really sure what it is, but I heard they are very popular.

Oooh! Pretty colored circles!

I figured the friends who had not signed Carlos' petition fell into one or more of four categories.  Either they hated turkeys and/or petitions, loved and intended to vote for Walter, loved and intended to vote for Marie, or quit playing FV2/and or using Facebook.  I posted the diagram on Facebook and asked the 494 Facebook friends who hadn't yet signed the petition to indicate in the comments below the post which category they fell into.

A lively debate ensued.

The ever-astute Lynn Hubbard was first to point out, "Well, if they have quit Facebook, they will not answer, ya know?"

"Darn it," I thought. "I have not fully thought this through!"

Then Bobbie Tower Cannamela asked, "hey Choo...whats in this for me !!!!"

Anita Merritt then pointed out that I failed to include a "color for people who are just plain lazy," and further, that I failed to "take into consideration the basic nature of people in general - in any survey, less than 1/2 the people contacted will respond without an incentive to do so."

Despite making me feel like a total failure, Anita's comments seemed well-reasoned, and also seemed to be borne out by Bobbie's comment.  Here I was thinking all along that my friends would be happy to do me a small kindness by taking the 17 seconds required to click the petition link, click SIGN IN WITH FACEBOOK and then click the SIGN NOW button, because that's just a nice thing that friends do for each other.  But no, it seems that I must actually somehow incentivize them; to lure them in and bribe them with trinkets of dubious value.

But how?

And then it came to me...

I noticed from the election souvenir stand which Barbara forced me to put on my farm that people really seemed to enjoy Walter's bobblehead figurine.  Look how overjoyed this man is to receive one!

By the looks of this man's reaction, he has either won $1,000,000,
or just received a Walter bobblehead figurine.

Indeed, Walter is a master of shameless self-promotion, plastering his face all over our farms, on everything from cupcakes and posters to bobbleheads and life-sized statues. In order to help Carlos succeed, I now realize that I must do the same for him.

And so, at great personal expense, I created a Carlos bobblehead figurine that I would like to give to everyone who has signed or intends to sign the petition for Carlos. 

Therefore, if you have signed or will be signing the petition, please click here to claim your free limited edition Carlos bobblehead now!

In a related subsequent Facebook post, Lois Newbegin Valentin shared a video of bald eagles to my timeline and commented, "Maybe Carlos needs these with him for inspiration. Patriotic attention getter might get votes."

Lois' suggestion that Carlos employ eagles to inspire patriotism for his campaign struck me as humorous and ironic, as it reminded me of the story about Benjamin Franklin lamenting the choice of the bald eagle as America's national symbol; expressing his preference instead for the turkey!

So when it comes time to cast your vote, be sure to ask yourself, "What would Ben Franklin do?"

That's right, he would vote for Carlos; and so too should you!