Steve is asked at work to escort a congresswoman for several days while she is in town. Reluctant at first, one glimpse of the pretty woman makes him happy to take her around to dinners and dancing, even though there is no hint of any real relationship getting started.
The show is really about this woman, Barbara, getting involved in a school election-Chip's class, where Chip is running for class president against a girl, Kathy, and to Chip and Ernie, the election is a foregone conclusion that Chip will win because there are 13 boys in the class and only 7 girls.
Under campaign manager Ernie's guidance, the boys do nothing to talk issues, only make claims that only boys/men should hold high office. Kathy, who is steered by her teacher, contacts the congresswoman for advice. Barbara advises her to challenge her opponent to a debate. She does, but Chip declines figuring she'd clobber him on issues.
Barbara then advises Kathy to appoint two boys as hall monitor (amazing how much kids run this school) to sway their votes.
Only when Barbara comes to dine with the Douglas clan does Chip learn that she and his dad think he is playing dirty politics. The adults have no idea that Chip is the one running for class president against Barbara's protege.
When the ballots are counted, the vote is a 10-10 tie. So the teacher bluntly states they don't have time for another paper ballot, and simply asks for a show of hands to vote, with Chip deciding to vote for Kathy, giving her an 11-9 victory. I would think many kids wouldn't want their friends to know who they voted for. The secret ballot made sense and a good teacher would not violate that right. Here, she should have just said, "Since we're tied, we will have one more week of campaigning, with a debate scheduled for Wednesday, then you'll vote again next Friday to see if we can break the tie." This episode was only slightly funny. Things that don't work include Chip's friend Ernie, who is, of course, his younger brother by three years in real life, and who clearly appears in every way to be younger than Chip, is in the same class. The class, as shown, appears to consist of people about 13-14 years old (as actor Stanley Livingston (Chip) actually was) except for little Ernie who looks like he was, age 10. For that matter, I find it hard to believe this public school in 1964 has only 20 students in this class. Class sizes were normally much larger then-typically 35 students or so. My 6th grade class had 42 students.
The teacher should never have worked solely to help Kathy and done nothing to help Chip. Guess the writers were thinking like today's thinkers who believe teachers are supposed to be advocates for "politically correct" ideas and not neutral on matters where they are supposed to be. It really seemed obvious that any teacher seeing the boy candidate ignore class issues and only campaign on the basis of his sex, would talk to the boy about how he should be focused on issues and not on who wears pants to school.
I also find it hard to believe that Chip didn't tell his dad he was running for class president. I know Steve is a busy man, but he did eat breakfast with the boys and normally saw them every evening. Only after the dinner with Barbara did Chip come to Steve and reveal this fact.
But that was the worst scene in the show. Chip is up late at night, wanting to tell Steve that he is the dirty politician Barbara was talking about. Steve's only response was to tell him it was late and he needs to go to bed. I believe their election was the next day. At any rate, we never got to see, or hear about, Steve ever giving Chip any advice in the least. Normally, if one of his sons comes to him with a problem late at night, Steve would at least take a couple of minutes to talk to him.
One cannot help but feel like this is somewhat a reworked premise from an episode a year earlier when Robbie was running for class president, and like Chip, he has no issues at all on his mind. Instead of simply being against girls in office, Robbie is hoping to impress a girl. Now the details are all different, with the most noteworthy one that Steve DOES give some advice to Robbie, to be himself and ask the girl out.
Frankly, the thought of 11-year-old Chip being so opposed to a girl winning an election for class president is unrealistic. We weren't shown how he and Kathy became the candidates-perhaps they were the only two who volunteered. But Chip wouldn't be thinking no girl should be president of a class in grade school. I'm sure there were lots of schools that had class presidents who were female in those days, even if the thought of a U. S. president being female would not have been popular. They are two totally different things.
I'll give this one a 4 also, matching my score for Robbie's election campaign of a year earlier.
The show is really about this woman, Barbara, getting involved in a school election-Chip's class, where Chip is running for class president against a girl, Kathy, and to Chip and Ernie, the election is a foregone conclusion that Chip will win because there are 13 boys in the class and only 7 girls.
Under campaign manager Ernie's guidance, the boys do nothing to talk issues, only make claims that only boys/men should hold high office. Kathy, who is steered by her teacher, contacts the congresswoman for advice. Barbara advises her to challenge her opponent to a debate. She does, but Chip declines figuring she'd clobber him on issues.
Barbara then advises Kathy to appoint two boys as hall monitor (amazing how much kids run this school) to sway their votes.
Only when Barbara comes to dine with the Douglas clan does Chip learn that she and his dad think he is playing dirty politics. The adults have no idea that Chip is the one running for class president against Barbara's protege.
When the ballots are counted, the vote is a 10-10 tie. So the teacher bluntly states they don't have time for another paper ballot, and simply asks for a show of hands to vote, with Chip deciding to vote for Kathy, giving her an 11-9 victory. I would think many kids wouldn't want their friends to know who they voted for. The secret ballot made sense and a good teacher would not violate that right. Here, she should have just said, "Since we're tied, we will have one more week of campaigning, with a debate scheduled for Wednesday, then you'll vote again next Friday to see if we can break the tie." This episode was only slightly funny. Things that don't work include Chip's friend Ernie, who is, of course, his younger brother by three years in real life, and who clearly appears in every way to be younger than Chip, is in the same class. The class, as shown, appears to consist of people about 13-14 years old (as actor Stanley Livingston (Chip) actually was) except for little Ernie who looks like he was, age 10. For that matter, I find it hard to believe this public school in 1964 has only 20 students in this class. Class sizes were normally much larger then-typically 35 students or so. My 6th grade class had 42 students.
The teacher should never have worked solely to help Kathy and done nothing to help Chip. Guess the writers were thinking like today's thinkers who believe teachers are supposed to be advocates for "politically correct" ideas and not neutral on matters where they are supposed to be. It really seemed obvious that any teacher seeing the boy candidate ignore class issues and only campaign on the basis of his sex, would talk to the boy about how he should be focused on issues and not on who wears pants to school.
I also find it hard to believe that Chip didn't tell his dad he was running for class president. I know Steve is a busy man, but he did eat breakfast with the boys and normally saw them every evening. Only after the dinner with Barbara did Chip come to Steve and reveal this fact.
But that was the worst scene in the show. Chip is up late at night, wanting to tell Steve that he is the dirty politician Barbara was talking about. Steve's only response was to tell him it was late and he needs to go to bed. I believe their election was the next day. At any rate, we never got to see, or hear about, Steve ever giving Chip any advice in the least. Normally, if one of his sons comes to him with a problem late at night, Steve would at least take a couple of minutes to talk to him.
One cannot help but feel like this is somewhat a reworked premise from an episode a year earlier when Robbie was running for class president, and like Chip, he has no issues at all on his mind. Instead of simply being against girls in office, Robbie is hoping to impress a girl. Now the details are all different, with the most noteworthy one that Steve DOES give some advice to Robbie, to be himself and ask the girl out.
Frankly, the thought of 11-year-old Chip being so opposed to a girl winning an election for class president is unrealistic. We weren't shown how he and Kathy became the candidates-perhaps they were the only two who volunteered. But Chip wouldn't be thinking no girl should be president of a class in grade school. I'm sure there were lots of schools that had class presidents who were female in those days, even if the thought of a U. S. president being female would not have been popular. They are two totally different things.
I'll give this one a 4 also, matching my score for Robbie's election campaign of a year earlier.
