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Barack Obama kids video screen grab
Barack Obama rules against eating blueberries in a cartoon written by a second-grader and narrated by 30 Rock's Kristen Schaal. Photograph: Screengrab.
Barack Obama rules against eating blueberries in a cartoon written by a second-grader and narrated by 30 Rock's Kristen Schaal. Photograph: Screengrab.

Obama v Romney: Children weigh in on the 2012 election

This article is more than 11 years old
They may be powerless in this election, but that doesn't mean they don't have opinions

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are wooing the women, courting the Latinos and pursuing the working class. As the candidates pander to the multitudes of demographics in the hopes of securing a seat in the Oval Office, one demographic remains ignored – children.

While the under-18s may be powerless in the 2012 election, they are the group who will be most affected by the actions of the next president, and the internet is filled with their interpretations of the electoral process.

New York non-profit Story Pirates adapted eight-year-old Julia Isabel Padro's understanding of the political system into an animated story voiced by 30 Rock's Kristen Schaal.

"We take stories written by elementary schoolers and we adapt them into a show," Story Pirates creative director Drew Callander told the Guardian. "What adapting means is that it can be a stage show, where we do a sort musical sketch comedy show, music videos or cartoons."

Callander and his wife Alana Harrison animated Padro's story about a blueberry frustrated by her size and edible qualities who then gets to test her political mettle in a meeting with president Barack Obama.

Padro first saw her story come to life at a Story Pirates show at her New York City school, and her original writing and illustrations can be seen in the credits.

This imaginative take is one of many filmed collections of how the most ignored demographic in the election interprets the electoral process.

Parenting magazine interviewed children at a Brooklyn block party to get their take on the 2012 election:

In the early 2000s, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had a segment called Great Moments in Punditry as Read by Children, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Jimmy Kimmel asked kids about politics in 2011. One young man feels very strongly about his father not getting elected president.

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