<p>also, your speech, no matter how good it is, won't really matter much. when people choose leaders they look for people who they like and who they think are qualified. from what you've said, both you and the girl are qualified for the job. the only question is whether or not they like her more than you.</p>
<p>worst thing you can do is take this election too seriously. don't pull a "Hillary Clinton" and go negative because those sort of tactics will repel your peers. if they think you're trying "too hard" to win they'll probably think you'll be a douchebag of a leader and be all power hungry, etc. just don't appear to care "too much" about whether or not you win and make sure to remain a good sport.</p>
<p>one thing that could work is if you come up with a super cool service project type thing to do. maybe draft plans to get involved in supporting a local inner city after school program with tutors. i think if you're able to be really creative with your ideas you'll be able to attract a lof of kids.</p>
<p>bring something they all like, lot of it...then when they ask if they can have one or some... say... this is for my voter's base...it's not really bribing...but make sure your make your voter's base sound elaborate and exclusive. Explain how you might bring more of whatever they like if you win...explain you issues...and offer them a fair position in your voters base...let them join your exclusive 'club'...if your a total 'anti-social freak' though you will have a very very tough time...
Or you can become friends with everyone in there, I highly doubt your opponent is friends with everyone in there...after you're friends introduce the idea casually like 'hey! you should vote for me'...</p>
<p>I was in a very similar situation myself last year. I lost. But here's why:</p>
<p>The girl was, like your opponent, very popular among the smart population of my school. There were also many more girls in NHS than guys. I tried my best to make a funny speech (It was about NHS, soy sauce and fried rice - everyone liked it but it wasn't enough to convert her friends to my votes but I didn't expect it to break friendship ties haha).</p>
<p>But the main reason I didn't win - there was another person running. Basically, many votes of the truly popular people (jocks, cheerleaders) that could've been very helpful went to this popular pom girl that ran. (So, I was cornered by two sects of popularity, both of which overlapped with my support base. The two girls didn't have that large of an overlap with each other)</p>
<p>Also, many people said they voted for the girl cause they thought I wouldn't have time to devote to NHS since I was involved so deeply with tennis, orchestra, AP classes, and math stuff that I do.</p>
<p>I'm going off tangents, but I'd suggest you make your speech funny and memorable. Also, try to get someone else to run that wouldn't really pull voters away from you but would draw voters away from her.</p>
<p>lol our school listen to speeches; i didn't vote for many of my semi-good friends for class officer cuz they had crappy speeches ("um..like...u should vote for me cuz, well, like, i'm like smart and stuff. ooh and i take like AP this, and AP that, and like even tho I'm not as smart or funny I can still be smart sometimes.")</p>
<p>HAHAH I'm NHS president this year.. how did i do it?</p>
<p>our elections are stacked. anyone who wants an office, runs for pres, then all the lsoers in that race all bump down and run for VP, then sect.. you get the point?</p>
<p>there were like 20 people running. and there was like pretty much 30 people voting? I knew everyone would vote for themselves the first round for preident, so i had my four friends all vote for me...</p>
<p>i think i won that race with 5 votes.. not sure if its true, but i did win</p>
<p>Are you serious? Nice. I should convince like everyone to run too, that would be an interesting idea! Already we have 3 people running out of a electorate of an estimated 40 and mabye many more by the end.</p>
<p>Lol, at our school, it was exactly like the Simpsons episode when Bart runs for class president. Everyone was so sure that he'd win so nobody voted and Martin won. On election day our teacher forgot to make the announcment and the underdog and her crew snuck in and took it.</p>
<p>lol, I liked the bart simpson one. But anyways, this sounds kinda like what happened with me last year, except I won lol. I don't know about your school, but our NHS is very big (over 100 people seniors plus juniors) so it's a really big responsibility for whoever that's president. I ran against someone who was already president and vice president of two other clubs. I brought up the fact that I have no elected positions in my other clubs so I could make NHS my number one priority. Kinda cheesy but it worked. I think it was a close election but I came out on top. Hope that idea helps</p>
<p>You could communicate to the voters that you would be able to direct all your energies toward the NHS position, while your opponent would have to split her time between her NHS office and her other high office. The voters may just listen. On another note - did you ever see that Reese Witherspoon movie "Election"?</p>
<p>^ problem with that is that I'm very prominent in the national political community. I can't reveal my name cause you could then just look up my wikipedia page and look up my achievments and positions and other news articles about me, but trust me I'm quite big, and serve as a major staffer for a presidential candidate and a major leader of a general lobbyist group [not a high school group, a actual lobbyst group]. I'll be running and probally will be an Elector to the Electoral College in November for one of the parties in November as well. I'm the closest thing to a high school 'political boss', if you can call it that. I'm not being arrogant, but trying to help you understand the position I should take in regards to this. </p>
<p>Should I emphasize my prominence or downplay it? I have major experience in political machines but I always have problems with local elections because in my opinion personal biases of people get through more while in national elections people truly listen to your platform.</p>
<p>I think that fact should emphasize to ppl however that in no way I'm doing this for college[I despise those people who do ec's for college]. I'd be running for NHS just purely out of my own desire to see service done in my local community rather than on a national scale. I think it is clear that this wont help me out on my college app since it will be easily shadowed by my political/legislative achievments, but I still strongly desire it nonetheless.</p>
<p>hmmm wow, now my opinion about you kinda changed. I read your profile and you said "why join a club when you're not going to be a high ranking officer"? If you're already some big boss for the Democrats, maybe you should just concentrate on that and don't run for NHS president</p>