Voting for the 2007 Homeschool Blog Awards ends midnight December 15 Pacific Standard Time. I have been watching closely as Home Where They Belong and Why Homeschool have both been quietly but steadily climbing up the ranks, slowly gathering energy for an eleventh hour challenge to my lead in the Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog.
After dropping two whole percentage points overnight, I wondered if I needed to seriously re-evaluate my whole campaign. Should I make the button in my sidebar bigger? Should I show more adorable baby pictures? Do I reach out to the undecided? Rally my base? Or wade forth and attempt converts from those loyal to other candidates?
Is it time to dig out the dirt on the other candidates? Or do I continue with my clean campaign, focusing solely on the issues?
I was relieved to gain back one of those percentage points over the course of yesterday, but this brought another issue to light. Consider the following:
- At the time of this writing, there are only 259 votes cast in my category.
- I currently have 24% of the vote.
- That means that only 62.16 people have voted for me.
That leads me to only one conclusion. Well, besides the obvious one drawn over at The Common Room. Come to think of it, our real presidential elections seem to be haunted by the same problem. But that isn’t the problem that concerns me at this moment.
Since I know for a fact that my husband, my mother, my father, my aunt and one of my mother’s coworkers voted for me, that means only 57 of my regular readers have offered a vote. I have more than 57 subscribers to this blog. And a lot more daily visitors. Meaning that either a large number of you have abstained…or [gasp] voted for someone else.
This is a devastating realization. Too devastating for me to speak on. So I will defer to my official spokesperson:
[tags]homeschooling, homeschool, Homeschool Blog Awards, HSBA[/tags]
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Shame, shame, shame. Have you no shame? Next thing you’ll be out in the streets kissing babies and stuff for votes.
Now, that’s funny! And effective. Just look at that baby. My official spokesman is a nine-year-old boy with scruffy hair, torn jeans, killer dimples and a huge gap between his front two teeth (that will have to be addressed by orthodontia, heaven help us). Cute, but not exactly in the same league as that baby. Also, the baby looks a lot cleaner.
LOTP is holding steady in sixth place in the Best New Blog category. Wah-hoo! All precincts are repoting in. Not much chance of improvement.
Good luck with your pandering! I voted! For you!
Well if I hadn’t already voted for you, that cute mug would have pushed me over the top. You’re bound to win. (Good for you for not going negative!)
Thanks for the laugh! You are just funny today, aren’t you?
Our computer network only lets one vote come from this household.
Otherwise, I know seeing that cute baby would have gotten my husband to vote for you. Every time there is a vote on America’s Funniest Home Videos he says, “The kids always win.” You may have pulled this one out just in time. 
thanks for your visit over at my place. it’s nice to meet you.
Alas, it appears that I can only vote one time from my household - and I already voted for you - or I would….and Tim at Duckabush blog too. LOL
Shame? What’s shame got to do with pandering for votes? And I’d kiss a cute baby for free if people would let me. But people are sort of strange about that.
Maybe I could use the campaign as and excuse to cuddle all the cute little babies at church!
Aah! Renae and De’Etta, that is awful! Disenfranchised husbands of blogging women…I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe I should contact the ACLU and see if we can get this remedied!
I hope you do win. I don’t want that Vision Forum stuff.
It’s not about the stuff, Lindsey. It’s about…well, I don’t know what it is about. Just competitive I guess. : )
I was undecided till I saw the size of your side bar button.
Hmmm…so did the smaller size of my button encourage you to vote for me or against me?
And Lindsey, I’d say it was about the glory and honor and all that. But this entry was all about that picture of my baby at the start of the entry. I loved it, wanted to post it and this shameless entry was conceived. : )
I think this year there are a great deal of us who have become “consentious objectors” to these awards and the farce that they have become. Even though some of my favorite bloggers are up, I can’t bring myself to participate when so many others, including myself, are now banned.
Some of your readers may have voted for you in the other category in which you were nominated (which I’m blanking on at the moment). I know I voted for your blog, but it wasn’t in the current events category.
It’s like what often happens at the Oscars when someone is nominated in multiple categories- his/her fans split their votes and there’s not a big enough concentration in one category to pull off a victory.
Good luck!
Angela, I’m sure the controversy has something to do with low voter turnout, but I’m not wading into those waters again quite yet.
Crimson Wife, I’m honored! In a way, that nomination (Best Live What You Believe) actually meant something more to me than this, but there is a reason I haven’t mentioned it as much. Partially because it is harder for me to poke fun at, but there is more to it than that. I have a half written post I may finish later. : )
I voted for you. But if I hadn’t the utter cuteness would have sent me to do it immediately.
Aww, thanks Summer. I’ll tell my little L. E. Fant that she got the cutest spokesbaby award. : )
I’m thrilled to see that you won, Dana. Your blog is truly excellent
Congrats!
You won! You won! You won! Hip-hip-hurray!!!
Thank you, thank you. Yes, it was a tough road to victory, what with all those baby pictures to go through!