ABSTRACT
My interest in politics began at an early age. Two weeks after starting the seventh grade, I ran for class president and won. I do not know what possessed me to run or, to be more accurate, what possessed my mother to encourage me to run. Surely it was her idea, since I had never been so much as a room monitor in elementary school. I remember sitting around the kitchen table with my family making campaign buttons out of construction paper and writing clever political slogans that Mom made up as we went along. Holding office gave me a great deal of confidence and helped me establish my own identity. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315783703/78f0c199-8941-4f0e-a232-b14ba42d3813/content/unfig13_1.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
