About every other year, and on the first day of classes with new students who have never taken any of my courses, I present them with a ballot, containing the names of two candidates for high office: candidate A and candidate B. I identify these two men only on the basis of actions in which they have engaged, or positions they have taken on various issues. After voting, I inform the students that candidate A was a composite of Revolutionary War figures [e.g., John Hancock, Sam Adams, George Washington, etc.] while candidate B was Adolf Hitler. (See one of my earlier E-Book articles for more details.)
Over the years, Hitler has received a fairly consistent total of 75% of the votes. In my first two classes this semester, the vote total was as follows:
Candidate A --------- 39 votes [41.5%]
Candidate B --------- 52 votes [55.3%]
None of the Above --- 3 votes [ 3.2%]
(The "None of the Above" votes were handwritten-in.)
