Episode 11: Vote for Mayor – Spreading Love & Joy This Election Season

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. On today's episode, we are beginning our Mayoral Election Coverage for 2025. For the next 7 weeks, we will join together to strengthen our love and compassion muscles, all while raising money for the carousel in the process. You'll be inundated with warm, fuzzy, uplifting stories, adorable animals, and lots and lots of puns. 

Each week, there will be opportunities for you to show your love and spread some carousel energy throughout your community. Join us in inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences, and celebrating the Carousel of Happiness's 15th Anniversary.

The Carousel of Happiness is a nonprofit arts & culture organization dedicated to inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider visiting the Carousel of Happiness online (https://carouselofhappiness.org/), on social media (https://www.facebook.com/carouselofhappiness), or in real life; or consider donating (https://carouselofhappiness.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general-donation) to keep the carousel and its message alive and spinning 'round and 'round.

If you have a story to share, please reach out to Allie Wagner at outreach@carouselofhappiness.org

Special thanks to songwriter, performer, and friend of the carousel, Darryl Purpose (https://darrylpurpose.com/), for sharing his song, "Next Time Around," as our theme song.

Transcript

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. I’m your host, Allie Wagner. 

On our last episode, I answered some of your Wonder Box questions. Like “why is the fish so small?” and “how fast is the cheetah?” You also learned some fun carousel facts like how many riders we see each day, and how the music in the carousel works. And, as always on this podcast, we learned about what the fish and cheetah can teach us about how to accomplish our goals with ease and grace.

On today’s episode, we are beginning our Mayoral Election Coverage for 2025. Before you turn off this show, please don’t. We are not talking about your average human election. This is a different kind of election. This is a Carousel of Happiness Election.

An Election of Joy. An Election of Love. An Election of Peace. 

For the next 7 weeks, you will be inundated with warm, fuzzy, uplifting stories, adorable animals, and lots and lots of puns. Together, we will join together to strengthen our love and compassion muscles, all while raising money for the carousel in the process. There will be opportunities each week for you to show your love and spread some carousel energy throughout your community. Whether you choose to participate or not, this is an opportunity for you to join us in inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences.

What am I talking about? What does this all mean? That is what today’s episode is all about. I’ll tell you the origin story of the Mayoral Election, what you can expect on the podcast for the next 7 weeks, and we’ll hear from each of this year’s candidates.

Let us begin, dear listener, with today’s story.

GONG

Once upon a time, long long ago, way back in 2021, the animals of the carousel had a secret late-night meeting at the Carousel of Happiness. Called by the wise Calico and her great-aunt, the cheetah, the clandestine meeting was held in the early morning hours of March 4, 2021, without the knowledge of the carousel's human staff. Not even Scott Harrison was told about this confidential congress.

And even now, we know very little about what happened that night. But, according to eyewitnesses driving on Highway 119 around 3 am that morning, the carousel lights lit up the night sky with radiant white light, and the animals were seen spinning and dancing and laughing and the next morning, Executive Director, Melody Baumhover, arrived at the carousel to find a letter taped to her office door. It read:

Dear Melody Baumhover and Human Supporters of the Carousel,

We, the undersigned animals of the Carousel of Happiness, wish to preserve the energy and legacy of this carousel for generations to come. And, while we love our human representatives so very much, we recognize that you are, in fact, human. Sometimes you fight, sometimes you hate, sometimes you say things you regret.

And that’s okay. The carousel is here for you and all of your humanness. If you’re having a bad day, come on in. The Dolphin specializes in curing Bad Days. If you’re grumpy, bring it on. Rooster and Rabbit have a collective 30 years of experience working with grumpy riders. The truth is, wherever you are, whatever you feel, you are always welcome at the Carousel of Happiness.

And we’re able to welcome you with such open hearts because, as animals, we’re different from human beings. We don’t hold grudges like you do. With the exception of the elephant, most of our memories are pretty short. We don’t care about what happened yesterday, and we aren’t worried about tomorrow. 

We know unconditional love. We know fun is in the present moment.

And as such, we’d like to petition to have our own representative. Someone to be our voice in carousel matters. Plus, we think an animal in the management team will help preserve the Carousel of Happiness for human generations to come.

Our proposal is this: every 2 years we will elect a Mayor of the Carousel. The Mayor will be responsible for representing the animals of the carousel and for preserving the carousel’s mission of inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences. 

Human beings can, and should vote. Voting will open March 13 and go until our annual Memorial Day Celebration in May. 

While humans are encouraged to participate, you must remember this is a special kind of election. NOT a human election. We will celebrate joy, love, and there will be puns. 

These are our terms.

Sincerely,

Animals of the Carousel of Happiness

Melody brought the note to a carousel board meeting and the board voted unanimously to the animals terms.  So in May 2021, Moose became the first Mayor of the Carousel. He was followed by his friend and campaign manager, Giraffe, who has been sticking his neck out for the menagerie since 2023. I know I speak for all of us when I say we all benefited from his higher perspective over the last two years.

But all good things must come to an end, even if the giraffe’s neck does not. And we are ready for a change at the carousel. Three brave animals have announced their candidacies – Dragon, Lion, and Pig – and you will hear about their platforms here on the podcast first. 

But, if you’re new to anthropomorphic fairytale elections set in carousels, I’ve got some news for you. This is not your average human election. The animals insisted that the carousel election cycle be an opportunity for humans to exercise their love and compassion muscles. There will be no debates. There will be no division. Over the next seven weeks, you can expect warm-hearted, fuzzy stories, and lots and lots of puns. 

There will also be opportunities to show your love for the carousel. You’ll be able to do that by voting for mayor, encouraging others to vote for mayor, buying a block of votes for mayor, or by playing the energetic games I’ll give you each week. Whether you choose to donate or not; whether you’re local to Nederland or not, I invite you, for the next 7 weeks, to join us in celebrating the carousel.

Why? Because spreading good vibes is fun. Because it feels good. And also, it is getting the celebratory juices flowing as we prepare for our 15th Anniversary in May. For 15 years, the carousel has been spinning its magic all over the world and for the next 7 weeks we will celebrate that together.

Remember the Loverator from Episode 8? The whirligig designed by Guy Pfifer that sits atop the carousel spinning love and joy and peace throughout the world? Well, this election is a massive human whirligig. We’re going to take the energy and spirit of the carousel and spread it as far and wide as we can. Together.

And, yes, this is a fundraiser for the carousel. But what is money? It is a form of energy. You can call this election an energy generator for the carousel. Some of you might choose to vote. 

Human votes in the mayoral race are $1 a piece. You can vote as many times as you wish, and all donations collected between now and May 26th go back into the carousel itself.

If you’d like to vote this election cycle, you can come into the carousel itself to choose your candidate. You can also vote on our website. Each dollar you donate grants you 1 voting sticker. In-person voters will then put their sticker on the poster of the candidate of their choice – in this case, Dragon, Lion, and Pig. Online voters will have their stickers applied by proxy by carousel staff. All election results will be tallied by an objective third party. And also a calculator.

Some of you might choose to generate energy for the carousel by encouraging others to vote.  If you are able to recruit 10 other people to vote for mayor, you will get a free ride on the carousel. If you are able to recruit 25 people to vote for mayor, you will get a free t-shirt from our gift shop. 

Some of you might choose to show your love for the carousel by buying a block of votes. These SuperFans, instead of SuperPACs of course, will receive a free 15th Anniversary T-shirt if you buy 100 votes or a free Carousel of Happiness sweatshirt if you buy $250 worth of votes for the candidate of your choice.

Now, we recognize there are some of you who love the carousel, but don’t have any cash right now. That’s okay. Each week, I’m going to give you some energetic games to play. These will be little love assignments you can do each week to express your support for, and spread the energy of, the carousel in your local community.

However you’d like to participate, we’d love to have you join us this Carousel Election Season. I’ll have more details as we go along, but first, I’d like to introduce you to this year’s candidates. 

DRAGON

Dragon, or Dragon Boat as he is known, has a very important role in the carousel. For many of our youngest visitors, the Dragon is their very first ride. Kids and their parents love him –  he envelops them with his strong and sturdy sides. He is consistent. And constant. No moving up and down for Dragon. While he might be a boat, he isn’t known to rock the boat. 

And while some might confuse that consistency with being boring, what many don’t know is that Dragon is one of our silliest animals. Have you seen his face? Have you seen those ears?

While the work of the Dragon – protecting our littlest of visitors – is serious. Dragon is not. He is one of our most light-hearted creatures, and quite the prankster. Do you know why Zebra’s stripes aren’t all black? Dragon switched the paints on Scott. Or at least that’s what he claims. True story. I think.

What I personally love about Dragon is how he loves through service, consistency, and a little bit of fire. I hope you consider Dragon for your vote, but don’t just take my word for it. Let’s hear what the candidate himself has to say: 

This is an official campaign statement from the Committee to Elect Dragon Boat as Mayor.

DRAGON

Ignite your passion! Vote for Dragon!”

While other dragons may be hungry for gold, I (being a dragon-boat) am only hungry to serve others with a fun ride! As Mayor, I will use my talons and talents to ensure that each creature who visits is touched by the magic of the Carousel of Happiness. I want to ignite the passion inside each of my constituents, ensuring our community members feel empowered to be change-makers.

When I was just an egg, I dreamed of the treasures I would protect as a dragon.  My father and mother dragon raised me to see the beauty in the unseen, and to pull magic out of normal everyday objects. They also taught me to use my strength and magic to protect those with less strength. And so, I decided to become a boat dragon, one that makes sure all of those that hop into my back for a magical ride feel welcomed. When I was invited to join Scott’s menagerie, I had found my true purpose, to protect the magical treasure that energizes the Carousel of Happiness - the crystal near the motor that captures the joy of our carousel riders and transmutes that energy into carousel rides. 

When you vote for Dragon, it’s a vote to protect the magic of the carousel.  As Mayor, I will rely on my fiery breath to ward off any evildoers, and use my instincts as a mythical treasure guardian to keep an eye on potential threats to happiness and well-being. I will work to magnify our impact and create more magic with the small treasures we do have by teaching my non-dragon friends the magic-creating secrets my dragon parents taught me.

When you vote for Dragon, it’s a vote to unify the community and find common ground. As Mayor, I won’t buckle under pressure, because my armored scales and I have faced many heated discussions in the past. I have confidence that by utilizing our magical carousel treasures, we will unify all creatures great and small. As Mayor, I am committed to ensuring my fellow carousel creatures feel seen and heard, and I’ll be available for one-on-one boat rides throughout my term to ensure all members of our community have their needs met.

Please vote for me, your friendly neighborhood Dragon, as Mayor of the Carousel!

See? I told you. He’s a great guy.

Next up, Lion. What do I love about Lion? I love how grand they are; how powerful they are. I love how they don’t hide their strength, but they don’t flaunt it either. I love how they stand proudly, rather than lion around…see, I told you there’d be puns.

What most people don’t know about Lion is that they’re a really good listener. Best in the whole menagerie. If you’re having a problem and need someone to listen, Lion is the mane man in town.

I highly encourage you to vote for this paws-itively sensitive leader and friend. The king of the jungle, the mane attraction…please paws what you’re doing right now and put your hands together for Lion.

___

LION

Thank you, Allie. Why should you vote for the lion? The answer is simple,  because it’s a jungle out there!  

When I am elected as the new mayor of the Carousel of Happiness my primary responsibility will be to manage this wild jungle and to make sure everyone who visits has a “ Roaring” Great Time. Ever since I was a baby cub I have loved nothing more than seeing the impact this magical place has had on all of our human friends. It will be my passion to use my leadership skills to continue to bring smiles to the faces of all our guests through our stories and experiences.

To be the Mayor of the Carousel of Happiness would be an honor of a lifetime and as your mayor I promise to lead with the courage of a Lion. I will make the tough decisions that are necessary to ensure that everyone who walks through our doors is moved in some special way.

I am asking for your vote as I am the only candidate who will truly be the leader of this pack of loving creatures that have been brought together to tell a story of devotion by our creator Scott Harrison.   

Thank you, Lion.

Next up, Pig. What do I love about Pig? First, she flies. True story. I know all the other pigs don’t fly, but she totally does. How is that for some challenging of social norms? She’s a trendsetter; she’s some pig.

Have you seen her ears? Yes, yes, I know I mentioned Dragon’s ears earlier, but Pig’s are pretty good too. I think they help with the whole flight thing. Or maybe it’s her tongue? Does she use it as a rudder in flight? I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that you’ll be snorting with laughter on her back. She’s got a great sense of humor, and I promise she won’t boar you…

Let’s hear from this year’s nominee from the Porcine (por seen) Party: Pig.

Thank you, Podcast Host. As your Carousel Mayor, I commit to keeping this hamlet and its magical secrets safe. You can rely on me not to squeal. And yes, it is true, I am capable of making loud sounds, but I pink-y swear to keep the carousel’s secrets safe under my administration. 

In this ever changing world, I recognize life changes rapidly. So while I do prefer pig pens, sometimes, I know, you need a pig pencil. And I promise to take my pig pencil with me, adapting to the challenges before us these upcoming years.

And I know policy can be boar-ing, so I won’t go into too many details. But just know, I might like to play in the mud, but I won’t tolerate any hogwash during my administration. I will encourage all to live in ham-mony with others, never hogging the spotlight. And I will always oink out a compromise with others.

What do you say? Don’t go bacon my heart, go hog wild, and vote for Pig!

And there you have it. Out of the mouth of Babe…

What do you think of our little election, dear listener? What do you think of spending the next 7 weeks with me and silly animal puns? What do you think about using this election as the excuse to spread some good vibes? 

If you’d like to vote, voting begins next Thursday, March 13th. If you’d like to encourage others to vote, you can do that. If you’d like to send some monetary energy our way, you can absolutely donate a block of votes. Either in-person or on our website.

But what about those who want to participate in our little game but don’t have the money to spend right now? Here’s where our little Loverator game comes into play. For those of you who are interested in spreading carousel love in your community, I’m going to give you a little energetic assignment this and every week for the next 7 weeks.

I want you to choose three people you love most. And on a sheet of paper, or on your phone, I want you to list three things you love about them. And then I want you to give them this list. You can send it in an email, a text, pick up the phone, whatever. 

As an example, one of the three people I love most is my husband. And I love my husband because he’s gentle and kind; I love my husband because he makes me laugh; I love my husband because in an ever changing world, he is my constant; he is my rock; he is my soft place to land. 

And if I were doing this assignment, I could write him a note, I could tell him over dinner, or I could broadcast it out on a podcast like I just did.

Speaking of which, if you have a message you’d like to share with someone you love, shoot me a text or send me an email, and I’ll read them on the podcast. Better yet, if you’d like to record your voice and send it to me, that would be great too.

Because sometimes those who are closest to us are unaware of the impact they have on us. Sometimes we don’t realize how important we are to others. Please use this silly little game as an excuse to tell someone you love why you love them.

In the meantime, take care. Be well. And, as we like to say at the Carousel of Happiness, “don’t delay joy.” And we’ll see you next time around.