So you
win $11,000 on Wheel of Fortune! Now what do you do with the money?
It’s obvious, run for governor of California.
At least that’s
what junior Daniel Watts did. Watts won the money last spring and
resisted squandering it on video games and comic books. Then his
friends jokingly suggested he enter his name on the gubernatorial
ballot. Why not, he thought, but he needed a platform. Lowering student
fees seemed an obvious choice, and so he ran a one-issue campaign.
“
The campaign was fun. It was easy for me to get attention because
I’m young and I act young,” says Watts. “I was
in a T-shirt that said ‘The Next Governor of California’ with
a sign I made from cardboard. I looked like a homeless 15-year-old
running for governor.” His total outlay of $1,600 netted
him 2,021 votes, placing him 40th in a field of 135.
Watts also
found himself on a lot of local television news programs and quoted
in newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. “If
all I’m saying is lower student fees, that is what they focus
on,” he says. “They called me the ‘student-fee
foe.’”
Find out more at: www.wattsforgovernor.com |
