Presidential elections in my lifetime:
1972: I was three years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. I had almost no awareness that an election was happening, but I did enjoy one of my older brother’s McGovern/Shriver ’72 t-shirts, because he wore it until it was in rags.
1976: I was seven years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. My second grade class had a mock election. We were told the day before, so I went home and asked my parents who I should vote for: Ford or Carter. I don’t remember exactly what my Dad said, but the question set him off and he went on a lengthy rant about Ford’s pardon of Nixon. I voted for Carter. I still remember some of the kids in that class who voted for Ford. I never really trusted them after that.
1980: I was eleven years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. This was the first election I really paid attention to. I paid a lot of attention. I watched debates in the Republican primaries. I watched Kennedy’s speech at the Democratic Convention. I was pulling for John Anderson because he seemed to make the most sense to my 11 year-old mind. But, by election day, I was sticking with my man Carter. When my parents moved out of my childhood home, they gave me a bunch of stuff from my childhood. Among them were comics and drawings I made that year depicting Reagan as a warmonger who was cavalier about using nuclear weapons. I was shocked at how politically aware I had been and how adamantly opposed I had been to Reagan’s candidacy. I remember watching the returns with a real sense of despair and depression. I also remember one other thing from that campaign. I remember my mother, during one of the Republican primary debates saying that she just didn’t trust George Herbert Walker Bush because he had been the head of the CIA. I never forgot that, and I never trusted the Bushes.
1984: I was 15 on election day and going to school in Maine. I had paid a little attention to the Democratic primaries and had supported Gary Hart, but this election passed by without me paying much attention at all. I was focused on sports and girls and music, as any 15 year-old boy should be.
1988: I was 19 on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. I spent the summer on Dead Tour, starting in Bloomington, Minnesota and ending in Oxford Speedway in Maine. Then I went to stay at a girlfriend’s house on Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. I remember sitting on the dock everyday reading everything I could about the presidential race. I remember forming a really dim view of the intelligence of the American people. I did some calculations to figure out how many people needed to change their minds due to the Willie Horton and Boston Harbor commercials to make Dukakis go from 14 points up in the polls to 9 points down (or whatever the numbers were). And then there was the Dukakis in a tank fiasco. I really couldn’t believe that the people were willing to elect Bush when he was so clearly at the heart of the Iran-Contra scandal. For the first time, I was genuinely beginning to feel like a soldier on the losing side of a war. I voted for the first time…for Dukakis.
1992: I was 23 on election day and living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had spent the summer in Princeton, however, and had been pulling for Paul Tsongas in the primaries. I was intrigued by Clinton but didn’t really trust him. I didn’t involve myself in the campaign, but I did enthusiastically vote for Clinton and I rejoiced with Wolverine Writer on election night.
1996: I was 27 on election day and living in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I was convinced that Bill Clinton would be impeached for breaking fundraising laws if he were reelected. It never dawned on me that he would be impeached for a blow job. I couldn’t support a candidate that I considered a lawbreaker and I couldn’t support Bob Dole. I didn’t vote. I had become disenchanted with politics, the Democratic Party, and, especially, the president.
2000: I was 31 on election day and living in Hightstown, New Jersey. I did my first volunteer work on a campaign, trying to help Bill Bradley win the nomination. I first learned how the national press could put their fingers on the scale to marginalize a candidate. Bradley raised more money than the sitting vice-president and was ahead in the polls in New Hampshire until the day he lost the Iowa caucuses. But Judy Woodruff and Bernard Shaw savaged Bradley everyday at 5pm on CNN. The press fell in love with John McCain and Bradley couldn’t get any oxygen. He lost the New Hampshire primary by a mere 4,000 votes and the press ignored him in favor of McCain until Bradley dropped out of the race. I had no use for Al Gore or Joe Lieberman and didn’t make up my mind to vote for them until the Sunday before the election. I read a piece in Rolling Stone magazine that convinced me that Al Gore really understood technology and the environment, and I held my nose and gave him my vote. I had already been radicalized by the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who I defended to anyone who would listen. But the Bush v. Gore decision pushed me over the edge. I became a complete political junkie.
2004: I was 35 on election day and living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I supported John Kerry in the primaries even though I really respected Howard Dean and the Deaniacs. I just wanted to win. I was the ACORN director for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. I put every ounce of energy I had into getting Kerry elected. When he failed, I was crushed. I started this blog four months later.
2008: I was 39 on election day and living in Malvern, Pennsylvania. I think you know this story. I was for whoever won Iowa, so long as it wasn’t Hillary Clinton. CabinGirl was for John Edwards and in the interest of peace I remained neutral despite secretly hoping that somehow Obama could pull it out. But, really, I didn’t care initially so long one of the two of them could keep the nomination out of the Clintons’ hands. But Obama ran a magnificent campaign that incorporated the kinds of tools I had learned with Bradley and ACORN and in the Netroots. On election night, I finally had a real win. I didn’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils.
So, what have your experiences been?
Your birthday is the day before mine. I was born the day after Carter was elected.
Scorpios rule!
68-I was 18, and shell-shocked from all the assassinations. I couldn’t vote but didn’t so much support Humphrey as oppose Nixon.
72-In the army at Fort Devens. I was one of two people in my whole building who voted for McGovern. I opposed the Vietnam War before, during and after my military service.
76-Was outside in a crowd at a Ford-Carter debate in San Francisco. On the way home my bus had to stop to let Ford’s motorcade zoom past. One guy made a sign of shooting a gun. The bus driver said, “Nah, only the good ones get killed.”
80-Carter conceded before I got home from work, so I voted for Dr. Spock who was Peace & Freedom, if I recall. I’d met Dr. Spock in ’69 and he said that the war in Vietnam would end only after more middle-class kids like me died there. Disconcerting.
84-Married, working long hours. Discouraging result.
88-See 84.
92-Very uncomfortable that the Democratic candidate was supporting stuff like NAFTA.
96-Glad the Repubs didn’t get the WH.
1948: I was 2 years old on election day. I don’t remember anything about it, but my parents did not like Harry Truman’s swearing even though they voted for him. Two years later I learned from my pre-school friends the words “A – bum” (A bomb)
1952: I was 6 years old on election day. That summer I watched the Republican National Convention on TV (the first TV I had ever seen) in the lounge of a motel in Daytona, FL while on vacation. My sense is that both of my parents voted for Eisenhower because of his war record and never regretted it.
1956: I was 10 years old on election day. I remember watching both conventions mainly because I was a TV addict and it was summer. I remember the endless repeating of the words, “Mr. Chairman…Mr. Chairman”. It was pretty boring but it was TV.
1960: I was 14 years old on election day. I went and heard LBJ speak at the Anderson SC County Fair and bought one of the fundraising plastic yellow roses for my mom. We were proud that a Southerner was running for vice-president. One of the girls in my school was campaigning for Nixon-Lodge and gave us campaign buttons for them. I already had a Kennedy-Johnson button, which I turned into an Alfred E. Neuman for President button because 14-year-olds thought Mad Magazine was cool.
1964: I was 18 years old on election day. I supported Goldwater because of his Americanism (did I say that I was in South Carolina?). My first doubts about Goldwater came when Strom Thurmond endorsed him and started dog whistling about segregation; I had already decided that desegregation made sense because of equal protection under the law. Becoming conscious of segregation as something that was an issue first exposed me to the hypocrisy of the American mythology that the schools were peddling. I chose to continue believing in American values of liberty and justice under the law. That meant that segregation had to go.
1968: I was 22 years old on election day and living in the burned out West Side of Chicago, working in a community organizing project. In the spring of my senior year, I had gotten clean for Gene and spent some time working as a volunteer in the local office. I was stunned by the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, coming on the heels of the assassination of Martin Luther King. After King’s murder, I witnessed the 82nd Airborne patrolling the streets of the university sections of Baltimore on ragtop trucks, weapons at the ready. From the top of an apartment building, I saw the fires in East Baltimore and West Baltimore. I was recovering from an industrial accident in a small town on the Eastern Shore when the Democratic Convention in Chicago was happening and heard daily continuous radio coverage of the police riot. By the time November rolled around I was not registered in my new location and did not vote.
1972: I was 26 on election day. I and most of the Peace Movement in Greenville, SC (yes, there was one) voted for McGovern. For the first time in my memory, local radio stations acted in a partisan manner on election day — one local station running an anti-McGovern parody song every thirty minutes.
1976: I was 30 on election day and living Rapid City, SD after having moved from Green Bay, WI. In Green Bay, I had met Jimmy Carter and talked with some of the folks on the Peanut Express (I had lived in Atlanta a few years before and they were glad to meet a fellow Southern in Green Bay). But on election day, I was traveling to Billings, MT on business and did not vote.
1980: I was 34 on election day and living in Wilkesboro, NC. After another year in Georgia and meeting folks in southwest Georgia (Carter country), I was a big Carter fan and I voted for Carter. The election of Ronald Reagan was shattering not only for the finger that the Iranian release of the hostage gave Carter but that within a year budget cuts had caused me to lose my social service job.
1984: I was 38 years old on election day and living in Charlotte NC. Newly registered, I voted for Mondale and for Jim Hunt (and against Jesse Helms). Another heartbreaker.
1988: I was 42 years old on election day and living Charlotte, NC. I was for Al Gore, who had been helpful to a community organizing project I was associated with. I voted for Dukakis. During the last week, my boss regaled us with anti-Dukakis jokes, some of which were really bad.
1992: I was 46 years old on election day. I had been a PBS junkie for several years and had seen Bill Clinton interviewed many times; he seemed cut from similar cloth as SC governor Richard Riley and like Riley succeed in getting a tax increase to upgrade education, not a trivial issue in the “thank God for Mississippi” South. I voted for Clinton. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow”. I had hoped that good times were back again.
1996: I was 50 years old on election day. Still a PBS junkie, I was beginning to get irritated with their continual anti-Clinton slant. Alan Simpson and Dick Cheney were continual guests. I was afraid that the GOP would win. And I voted for Clinton again. And watched a Congress in search of an impeachment to avenge Richard Nixon.
2000: I was 54 years old on election day. Finally, Gore could become president. He had the experience in national security, in re-engineering the federal bureaucracy, in the emerging internet. And then he lost…then won…then the recount…then the legislative maneuvering…the the Supreme Court stole it with Bush v. Gore. I was stunned and angry.
2004: I was 58 years old on election day. I voted for Kerry; he was my chosen candidate because he had stood up against the War in Vietnam. I was clear that most Democrats had been railroaded into voting for the Iraq war authorization and irritated at the flip-flop meme. People can change their minds when they decide that something was a mistake. I was so hoping for a win. When it came down to one state and the behavior of yet another Secretary of State and Bush won, I was apoplectic for two days. Almost speechlessly so.
2008: I was 62 years old on election day. I was all over the lot in the primaries but wound up voting for Obama because Edwards was already out by the time the NC Primary rolled around. And I got caught up in the excitement of the Obama campaign after the Denver convention. And when the totals on election night were in, I felt like I could exhale for the first time in 28 years. And NC had a Democratic Senator again — bye, bye Liddy.
The next year ran as 3rd candidate for student council president, slaughtered 43-42-7, even though I had most innovative posters. Also had social studies teacher who had us pray for Reagan when he was shot, and who told us it was a good thing that Lennon was killed, because he was a Commie. Stopped reciting the Pledge out loud.
Anyway, that’s my history.
1960-I was still in diapers. So my recollection is a bit thin on this one. But I can bet you my parents voted for Nixon. It would not be the last time they did something so foolish.
1964-As a kindergartner at the time, I guess you could say I was not very politically aware. Too much of my time occupied by childish pursuits. But I remember some years later my dad talking about this election. He said something to the effect, “I can’t help but wonder how much different things would have been in this country if Goldwater had been elected President”. It was many years before I came to the realization of what he meant by that remark.
1968-I actually remember this election cycle quite distinctly, though I was only nine years old at the time. We had mock political conventions at our school. I was a staunch supporter of Eugene McCarthy. The reason? The brother of one of my best friends in the neighborhood had come home from Vietnam in 1967….in a flag draped box. From the perspective of a kid whose friend had just lost his big brother, a candidate who was against the war was reason enough to support him. I remember wondering how in the world he lost. How could anyone vote for someone who was for that war?
1972-Now a teenager. The Vietnam War still raged on. Once again, our school had mock campaigns. We even had a debate before all of the junior high classes. I was on the Democratic side of the aisle and was chosen to be George McGovern in the Presidential Debate. The Democratic Vice Presidential representative who I teamed with was a girl whose brother had recently won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Our campaign theme was “End the War”. We won the debate and the mock election. It was priceless.
1976-In high school now. Our government class held presidential debates. Somehow I ended up being chosen for the Gerald Ford side of the debate. It was the low point of my high school days.
1980-My first time voting. With seemingly everyone around me having a big Reagan political lovefest, I trudged into my polling place and pulled the lever for Jimmy Carter, knowing that he was toast. The hostage crisis had eaten him alive.
1984-Mid 20’s now and starting to pay more attention to politics. What can I say. Mondale didn’t have a prayer. But I still voted for him. Voting for Reagan was a non-starter.
1988-I was actually a Gary Hart supporter at the start of the campaign, all 3-plus weeks that he was in before he dropped out. Of course, everyone knows how that whole thing worked out. After Hart dropped out and it became apparent that Dukakis was the guy, I warmed somewhat to him. I liked his opposition to the death penalty and his generally liberal positions on a variety of issues. But his difficulty with showing a public passion made him a hard guy to be overly enthusiastic about. I was disappointed that he wasn’t better able to make it a competitive race. I thought Bush was very beatable during the 1988 race.
1992-Moving into my 30’s now. Initially liked Paul Tsongas in the early campaign, especially his liberal positions on social issues. Even after Clinton won at the convention, I was not a big Clinton fan. Held my nose and voted for him, though. The thought of H.W. Bush for another four years was unbearable.
1996-Four years later and still not a fan of Clinton. Thought much of his Presidency was a great opportunity squandered in a lot of ways. Admire his political skills, though. Have heard him in person a couple of times and he is an impressive politician.
2000-Barely into my 40’s on election day. I was a lukewarm supporter of Al Gore. His intelligence impressed me, I think. I really didn’t think there was any way that George Bush could beat him. And I was right. Except the SC had their thumb on the scale. This was the point where my cynicism about politics reached its nadir. I really couldn’t believe that GWB was going to be handed the Presidency without a fight. I was supremely disappointed with Gore’s caving in.
2004-Probably one of the most disheartening election nights I will ever have in my lifetime. This was the first time I had ever been involved in a campaign in any way. I made phone calls and canvassed quite regularly in our area for John Kerry. I really thought that we would see the end of the Bush reign that night. I will never forget laying on the couch into the late hours of the night listening to the radio while the returns came in. I just couldn’t bring myself to watch the idiots on the tube. My disappointment was visceral when it was clear that we would have another four years of the Bush Administration.
There is another memory from that campaign season. I quite vividly remember sitting and watching the Democratic Convention and listening to a young Senator give the keynote speech. I told my wife the next morning, “Someday this guy is going to be elected President”. I hadn’t ever heard a speech like that in my life.
2008-Now staring at 50 years old. I was initially supportive of John Edwards. My greatest fear was that Hillary would get the nomination. I felt certain that if she was the nominee, that it would be the GOP’s election to lose. I absolutely knew that I would be unable to stomach what would come from the media if Hillary Clinton was the nominee. The absolute idiocy would be too much to take. It didn’t take long to realize that Obama was going to take the Democratic ball and run with it. It was the most impressive campaign I have ever seen. I was privileged to be able to participate locally and to this day have a tremendous respect for what was accomplished. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was part of something that just might make a difference. It was a great feeling and wonderful learning experience for me on the inner workings of a campaign. I look forward to doing it again. Winning makes it all the more enjoyable. It was a long time coming.
Great, great post.
Didn’t know you were near my age. Somehow I just took you for some old curmudgeon. 🙂
I’m sure no one cares about this and I’m fairly longwinded so … But I just couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
age 9, I recall thinking Carter seemed genuinely nice and that Reagan seemed … false somehow.
1956 — Still in diapers, not paying attention. Eisenhower was President, which is all I know.
1960 — 5 years old. Just aware enough to know there was a new president. Wasn’t sure if I liked this development. What was wrong with the old one? (to be fair, I should mention I felt the same way when I learned about the “New” Testament…)
1964 — 9 years old. I knew more about Winnie-the-Pooh and Narnia than electoral politics. Though I liked that Kennedy had kids, just a little younger than me. Caroline reminded me of me, we had the same haircut. I felt very sad for them when Kennedy was assassinated. I do remember watching the funeral on TV.
1968 — 14 years old. Not paying attention. I knew more about Barnabas Collins than Richard Nixon. I knew there was a War in Vietnam, because the radio announced casualties periodically and it was on TV.
1972 — 17 years old. Knew about the peace movement, had friends who went to the May Day protests. Wanted war to end but don’t remember paying much attention to the presidential campaign. I turned 18 in 1973 — about the time they lowered the voting age — and registered Republican, mostly because Nixon was in the White House at the time. Didn’t know what the difference between the parties was, anyway, other than having different mascots.
1976 — 21 years old. Voted (absentee) since I was away at college at the time. I think I voted for Carter, but I’m not 100% sure. I was not unhappy he won, anyway; at the time I was very involved in Christian Fellowships, and I probably thought a Bible-believing Christian in the White House was a good thing.
1980 — 25 years old. I think I voted for John Anderson, in part to make sure he qualified for federal election funds, though I knew he wouldn’t win. I still didn’t have a real concept of the difference between the parties — I do remember thinking that Reagan’s tough talk “scared” the Iranians who were holding the hostages.
1984 — I know I voted. I always did, even when I had to vote absentee, or drive back to a previous address’ precinct because I’d forgotten to tell the Board of Elections I’d moved. But I don’t remember a damned thing about who I voted for. It may very well have been Reagan. I didn’t know any better, and I was still registered as a Republican….
1988 — I think I voted Dukakis, because I never did like George HW Bush all that much. (Yeah, I’m pathetic, aren’t I? I just wasn’t thinking about it that much, and didn’t think it made that much difference…)
1992 — By this time I had started paying attention. I liked Bill Clinton. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy, certainly more so than Bush, and he was clearly smart and understood people. I also liked Hillary because she had other things to do with her life than bake cookies. And most importantly, I had a lot of gay friends, so Bill Clinton’s message of the big tent meant a lot to me. I changed my registration to Democrat. I even went to Clinton’s first inaugural parade — I had a job on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, so I could watch from indoors if the weather was bad. The weather was superb, practically shirt-sleeve, in January. I especially remember the jubilant crowds and the rainbow flags.
1996 — Voted for Bill Clinton again. Dole sounded stale and whiny. I didn’t like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but things seemed to be going well overall and I still liked Clinton a lot. (I didn’t much care about the whole Monica thing later… I didn’t LIKE what Clinton had done, but it was pretty obvious that Monica had been a willing participant, so as far as I was concerned, it was Hillary’s right to forgive him or not.)
2000 — Voted for Al Gore. Didn’t like George Bush II. Something about him just rubbed me the wrong way, he came across as arrogant and smarmy. Al Gore wasn’t as personable as Clinton, but I figured he’d continue with the good things Clinton had done. The wait for a definitive answer on who had won the election was funny at first, then annoying, and finally disappointing… (I actually like Al Gore a whole lot more NOW than I did then.)
2004 — By the time Maryland’s primary happened, it was pretty clear who was going to be the nominee, so it was Kerry all the way. By this time I would vote for anyone with a (D) after his name, but I honestly liked Kerry, even though I recognized he wasn’t the best communicator. I thought his heart was in the right place, and I liked that he was smart. I had also discovered blogs by this time — it helped my sanity a lot to know there were so many other people out there who saw things much as I did. After Kerry lost, I really needed that support, a sense of being part of a much larger community.
2006 — not a presidential election year, but I did get involved in electoral campaigns for the first time — at the state level, working to send Jamie Raskin to the Maryland State Senate, and Heather R. Mizeur to the House of Delegates. (And they’ve done us proud since then too). And we almost got Donna Edwards into Congress…
2008 — Started out as a big fan of John Edwards, though I was also really happy Obama won Iowa, and it was really hard to decide between the two. (I liked Hillary, but I liked her in the Senate, not the White House — her hawkishness on foreign policy bothered me). I liked Kucinich too — but I knew he wasn’t electable. Obama clearly WAS. Switched to Obama without a qualm when Edwards dropped out, and got more and more excited about him as the campaign went on. And overall, I still am. He was definitely the best possible choice out of the field, even if I’m not crazy about all his policies. Given the clusterf**k he inherited, he’s done incredibly well.
So, I’ve come full circle, Democratic roots, went Republican, back to Democrat, now liberal Democrat.
given your history, you shouldn’t be so critical of the desire to work across the aisle.
I’d agree if there were any Republicans with integrity left. Even Nixon, warped and paranoid, tried to serve the country. I left them because there was no one left but country club/Wall Street aristocrats, bigots, and religious crazies. I’ll admit to being prejudiced as a youth. But, in my defense, when I actually met the objects of prejudice, I realized that what I had been told by society was a crock. That refers to African-Americans (I was raised in a lily white suburb) and gays. I never was prejudiced against Latinos; their culture looked too much like our own Mediterranean culture.
I still believe in a strong Defense and Kennedy’s dream of Man in Space, but now I know that those lofty goals have been corrupted by the Right into money making schemes devoid of substance other than an excuse for contracts.
One can deal with men of honor who have a different view, but when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. You can’t deal with the devil. Neville Chamberlain thought you could. He was wrong.
Long time reader, first time poster:
I couldn’t stand Bush. Wasn’t taken in by his compassionate conservatism but also couldn’t help but admire the approach – presenting himself as entirely reasonable but acting completely differently. Told my wife that everyone thought he was stupid but that he knew what he was doing – I thought he was evil precisely because he presented himself in such a reasonable manner but would do horrible things as President. Ruined a client meeting on the day after the elections by continually refreshing my phone wap pages to get the latest on the result. Thought the Florida thing was absolutely corrupt, a demonstration that the US was turning into a lawless place – I mean my God, the Supreme Court (a truly wondrous thing for a lawyer to think about) basically corruptly decided an entire election. Began thinking that the electoral college should include “Rest of the World” as a separate state so that the majority of people who are directly affected by the identity of US Presidents could also get a say in who it would be.
2007-8: Obama all the way. Wore my Obama shirt in Paris in summer 2007 getting spontaneous cheers from people on the street all day long. bored my wife with Obama speeches until she started hearing them and got hooked. watched the Philly race speech in Jamaica and thought it was a thing of genius. If there is one thing I admired about the Obama campaign is that they generally ran at things rather than ran away. I really really appreciated that. I know there’s less of that in current governing but every now and then it comes out – just deciding to push HCR while the mood of the country suddenly changed was one example. I think he’s accomplished a hell of a lot in his first year and a half. I think the reason why people forget that compromise is necessary in governing is that for 8 years during Bush, hardly anything difficult was done at all. When something’s difficult, it takes needling, pushing and compromise.
2012: I will be supporting Obama again with absolute pleasure. I hope he runs against Palin if only to see the two of them debate and Obama wipe the floor with her once and for all. He will be re-elected with a bigger share of the majority than in 2008 is my prediction.
2004, 39, married, 2 kids. My fledgling company isn’t quite paying the bills yet so we are living off of savings. I am, of course, sickened and appalled by the hijacking of the country by Bush and his gang of merry thugs. I am enthralled, however, by the Harry Truman-esque plain truthtelling of Howard Dean. The aftermath of the scream convinces me once and for all of the banality of our political media, so I’m not surprised when nobody will report that the Swiftboat ads were lies. I never gave up faith that Bush was simply not electable after Bush v. Gore. Oops. This was the darkest night of my political life. I felt so deeply ashamed of my country in the eyes of the world, I became cynical and despondent about American politics, along the lines of Billmon.
2008, 43, married, 2 kids. The company didn’t quite make it and now I’m working fulltime for well beneath my market value because… you guessed it… the insurance was good. This is so clearly going to be a realigning election, I feel certain the Dems should make the boldest statement possible with their nominee, and they do, with Barack Obama. This is the year of the overwhelmed precinct caucuses in Texas, and I ran one, with 95 people jammed into a room the size of a classroom. We have 11 delegates to elect for the Senatorial District convention, apportioned according to presidential preference. The vote comes in 47-47 with only the chair, me, remaining to vote. I cast my vote for Obama, giving him the sixth delegate to Clinton’s five. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I am at the Democratic watch party in downtown Fort Worth when the election is called for Obama. I watch with complete empathy and respect the relief and jubilation of our African-American Democrats at finally breaking through to the source of real power in this country. This was easily the best election night of my life.
I worked as a foreign student on a J 1 visa for the summer of 1972 (or was it 73?) in Wildwood New Jersey (Howard Johnsons Board walk take-out window hot dog and Ice-cream salesman) and Virginia Beach (road building and construction in 90 degrees yuk).
My main memories are of a poster entitled “WHY CHANGE DICKS IN THE MIDDLE OF A SCREW, VOTE NIXON IN ’72” and of the remnants of the counter culture which led to an enjoy able time hitch hiking around for a couple of weeks before returning home to College in Ireland. Many thanks who all who showed me hospitality then.
The contrast between the extraordinary kindness and generosity of Americans at a personal level and their (to me) extreme ignorance and cruelty towards the larger world around them has always stayed with me and confounded all rational explanation.
Scrawled on a Men’s Room stall in a Navy agency, “Nixon is a Cox-sacker”.
1940 I was an infant and it was FDR against Wendell Wilkie.
OK, this is going to a long slog, so I’ll quit now!
Don’t quit!! This might be the most interesting post yet on Booman Tribune – thanks Booman! Would love to hear your story – long or short.
1984 Born. Can’t remember the election.
1988 Don’t remember the election or anything prior to the Gulf War.
1992 Dad supported Clinton, so I did. Had a mock election at my elementary school. Clinton won it.
1996 Don’t remember much beyond everybody believing Clinton would win in a landslide.
2000 Gore and Bush debates were funny. Didn’t care much about the outcome. Mom voted Bush, Dad voted Nader. Told Dad he was wasting his vote and should go for Gore, but he’d had enough of New Dems.
2004 First time I gave a damn. War lies turned me Dem. Economics strangely turned me into liberal Dem (thanks to John Maynard Keynes and Paul Krugman), despite a pretty right-wing department. Volunteered for Howard Dean. Kerry sucked and Edwards was a classic prettyboy Southern huckster. Heartbroken when Dean lost. (Would still walk through fire for a Dean presidency.) Sucked it up and volunteered for Kerry. Thought about Nader briefly, but the more I learned, the more I thought he was a fraud. Went to bed at 10PM on election night baffled by how stupid this country could be.
2008 Thought Obama would be president from March 2007 on, regardless of my feelings. Still have the email to Dad predicting it somewhere in the bowels of GMail. Hated Clintons. Didn’t want a war supporter, but didn’t like Obama’s milquetoast proposals. Still thought Edwards was a huckster, and look back wishing I’d trusted my instincts on that from the start, but was mildly supportive of him up to Iowa due to his proposals. Grew a bit towards Obama as Iowa approached and went over to him after he won the caucuses as the Anybody But Clinton candidate. Glad Edwards lost, looking back.
2012 Will vote for Obama despite some disappointment. (Never expected the sorts of lofty gains others expected, so haven’t been as disappointed.) Will vote for Democrats until the Culture of Emboldened Stupidity that dominates the GOP is destroyed.
1960 – Young whippersnapper, remember only how cool the JFK for President sign looked on our front lawn.
1964 – Beginning political junkie career, watched some of 64 conventions on tv, recall Bobby’s dramatic appearance, but not LBJ’s acceptance speech (nor does anyone else). Repubs in SF (!) that year seemed a little cranky about Rocky and the news media; adults behaving badly, live on teevee …
1968 – Saw RFK at campaign rally in my small town one week to day before CA primary, amazed he had come to our town and was actually just a few feet in front of me. Saw Nixon in Sept at large rally at SB airport. He walks off plane, waves arms in Ike victory salute, delivers standard canned speech and leaves. Even his supporters in crowd seemed canned and rehearsed. Security everywhere. Weird vibes …
1972 – Pulled into SLC on crosscountry trip late at night, just in time to see McGovern deliver acceptance speech at 1 am. Great speech, I thought, and if only he’d given it 4 hours earlier. Nov: just turned 18 and proudly cast 1st ever vote for George. Naively thought polls showing huge Nixon lead were bogus, and believed McGovern’s late campaign massive rally turnouts were a good sign — not the first time I was wrong about politics, alas. Disgusting margin of victory for such an obvious crook, I thought.
1976 – Jimmy the C didn’t campaign much in CA (if at all) and I wasn’t much emotionally invested that yr, plus he seemed a shoo-in over the hapless Jerry the F. Turns out JC nearly was too cute with his narrowly focused campaign strategery.
1980 – 1st and only time not voted Dem — went for John Anderson. Hey, I was in good company as it turned out later, as Arthur Schlesinger Jr reported that both he and Jackie Kennedy did the same. Sorensen too, iirc. Probably even Teddy went Anderson in the privacy of the polling booth …
1988 – The wimp Dukakis who sat on his behind in Boston while Poppy and Atwater crucified him for 3 solid weeks with no response. Mike’s political negligence was so egregious, he should have been brought up on criminal charges. 20 yrs later, I’d still like to have a choice word or two with him.
1992 – My man Bill, all the way after a couple of solid debate performances. Poppy deserved a swift kick in the groin after his demagogic, disgraceful 1988 campaign.
1996 – Blah campaign, decided early by Bill’s tough ads on Repubs, and GOP decision to go with aging cranky old man as nominee.
2000 – Biggest political crime of recent memory, and as usual our conflict-averse leader decides we should all just sit back and take it in the shorts like the nice libruls we are. Which we did.
2004 – Like my teenage daughter said early and often, this one was always going to be stolen by Bush and Karl if it was close. Naively I thought 2000 was a one-time matter and they wouldn’t dare do it again, but the inexperienced youngster turned out to be right. See the post-election analysis by RFK Jr in Rolling Stone.
2008 – Got in early for Hillary, I mean about 2005. Disappointed in her fuddy-duddy frontrunner campaign, and my candidate’s occasional unforced errors. The ticket should have been Hillary/Barack, which also would have won, probably by the same margin. We’d get roughly the same FP as now, and probably a more robust healthcare bill since Hill wouldn’t have wasted many months trying in vain to line up Repubs. She already knew the score on them, from her Whitewater and impeachment yrs in the WH. Oh well, what might have been, and Obama ran a better, smarter campaign and deserved to win.
1956 – At age 7, I really liked the hoopla, costumes, music and extravaganza aspect of the election. Life in the suburbs was just peachy so far as I knew, so I did like Ike.
1960 – All was still hunky-dory in sixth grade, but peer pressure forced me to vote Nixon in our classroom contest. Dad was R, Mom was D. I watched the conventions and debates and really enjoyed the show.
1964 – Absolutely no contest.
1968 – Not invited to the party. Old enough to watch brothers and friends go to war or not go. Lost my beloved Senator RFK.
1972 – Cast my first presidential vote Against Nixon, and Against the death penalty in California.
Continued the focus on what I was Against for decades. Pushing sixty when I finally got to cast a big For vote. But the real thrill was my vote for real representation in gov’t. – My Senator Franken. Happy 59th birthday Al.
Very similar here: both in terms of timeline and in terms of outlook…
Random question: where in Maine were you going to school… because I was in high school in Maine at the same time.
The only part of Boo’s interesting and informative post which doesn’t ring true is this
The negative CNN coverage of Bradley, at least on that one show, surprises. Elsewhere, especially in major print media like the NYT and LAT, Bradley was fawned over as the Last Decent Dem standing between the Ruthless Tainted Al Gore and the WH. And even though BB lost the first two key contests, and by that point had effectively been knocked out, the aforementioned media continued to cover him as if he were still in legitimate contention.
When he finally officially dropped out, it’s telling that Bradley, in a well-covered media event, handed out gifts of thanks to various grateful media people for their “fair” coverage, with Bradley particularly noting the female reporter at the LAT. Sort of an anti-Nixon final press conference, with the candidate warmly embracing and thanking the media.
Other than that difference in our recollections of the Bradley campaign, I’m not sure Bradley’s oddly liberal and pro-Wall Street campaign did much other than to distract and damage Gore for the general election (allegations by BB against Gore of “dishonesty” would later be exploited by Rove). Does Booman have any second thoughts about backing Dollar Bill, the guy who the past year was sort of lukewarm about Obama’s healthcare reform (he wanted it to include strong tort “reform”) and who otherwise has been virtually absent from the political scene?
No regrets. Bradley would not have lost to Bush. And he’s a better person than Al Gore who would have made a better president. And he would not have picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Read Bradley’s books if you want to satisfy yourself of this.
As for your recollection, it’s partly inaccurate. Because there was no Democratic primary for something like seven weeks after New Hampshire and because the Republicans immediately turned to South Carolina, there was almost no television or prominent print coverage of the Democratic race, which was considered over. Because of John McCain’s stunning and decisive win over Bush in New Hampshire, he became the entire story. In a typical hourly CNN program, 55 minutes were on the GOP race.
They didn’t even report on most of what Bradley did. And they completely shut-out Bradley’s surrogates while allowing Gore’s weasels free rein to trash Bradley in those five minutes. It was bad before New Hampshire but it became a farce after it.
Clarification. In my last post, I was commenting more on Bradley’s overall coverage by the media in the 2000 campaign, whereas (as I see now) you were more concerned about the lack of same following NH.
My response would be that for decades, and particularly in that primary campaign, the first two traditional contests are crucial for the insurgent candidate to show at least one victory against the incumbent and odds-on favorite for the nom, Gore. Bradley lost both in IA (badly, iirc) and narrowly in NH, BB’s home region and a state well known for its independent streak. Close, but close doesn’t cut it when you need nothing short of a win. Close was good enough for Gene McCarthy in 68 but not for Bradley in 2000, just as close wouldn’t have been good enough, under the framework established in the 08 cycle, for Hillary, coming off her loss in IA.
After the NH loss, as per the established rules both in the media and among pols and major funders, it was all but over for Bradley. Not surprising, at that point in the proceedings, that the media would have cut back on their coverage of him. But when there was still a contest, as I tried to suggest earlier, Dollar Bill enjoyed some of the most favorable major press coverage any Dem had seen since, probably, LBJ in 64. Meanwhile his opponent was trashed daily by the media, starting actually the year before (see DailyHowler).
As for some other points, Gore did run a lousy g.e. campaign (and a pathetically weak post-election Recount campaign). And I agree that Bradley wouldn’t have picked Holy Joe (of course, that would have made for 2 Ivy League-educated northeasterners on the same ticket), though I’m unaware if BB ever disclosed later whom he would have picked. (Anyone know?)
Hard to tell though whether he’d have made for a better g.e. candidate than Gore, especially given Bradley’s very low-wattage personality and unfortunate sleep-inducing style of speaking.
1960, Election Night. I’m 4 1/2 years old. I remember saying to my Dad: “Who’s winning?” He says: “Kennedy.” I asked him, “Is that good, Daddy?” He says: “NO!!!!!!”
That’s my first memory on this Earth — really!
Cool post, it made me fondly remember back. Sorry about the length, but you shouldn’t have inspired me so much, 🙂
1968 – The first election I was aware of, I was 6 years old. In Muskegon, Michigan. That year had a huge impact on my life. My father died of a heart attack, my oldest brother went off to Vietnam and my next oldest brother went off to college at Berklee College of Music in Boston, the Vietnman war was on TV, my older brothers were marching in anti war protests. I have impressions of Chaos and doom that Nixon would win.
1972 – I was 10 and spent the summer working at McGovern Headquarters in Muskegon, Michigan stuffing envelopes and handing out flyers at grocery stores, I remember the same sense of doom, depression because of the war, racial tension.
1976 – Same as you, Booman, didn’t pay a lot of attention at 14 but vividly remember coming home on election night and watching the returns with my mom, the first Feminist in the country, born in 1923. I was surprised that Carter won, I remember assuming he would lose and was excited that he won.
1980 – Carter, Carter, Carter…I was very active in the election, Reagan was going to be the end of civilization as we know it. A senior in High School, I was fully addicted to politics, eating and breathing it.
1984 – Must stop Reagan and his puppetmasters….anyone but Reagan. Saw Mondale in Lansing Michigan where I was going to Michigan State University, I was over the top political junky, buying every paper I could find, watching every political show I could find on TV. Those days it was Sunday morning and MacNeil Lehrer Newshour. In 1985, I took a General Business Law class with a professor at MSU who was one of Reagan’s speechwriters in the ’84 campaign. Graduated #1 from the University of Michigan Law School. We would have debates about the election, we re-fought the election during class. He always gave me shit whenever he badmouthed Mondale. He gave me an A in the class even though I really did C work.
1988 – Dismal year, I wasn’t happy with any of the candidates, really. Dukakis had no sex appeal and the electorate was coming off the Hollywood president, the empty suit. Dukakis was stiff, wonky…but I agreed with him and tried to help him get elected.
1992 – Clinton, Clinton, Clinton….I liked him a lot. I didn’t like some of his moderate positions like welfare reform and too many tax breaks for business, easing of regulations..but I did like the fact that he was intelligent, hands on, persuasive, telegenic, and not of the World War II era. When he came to Grand Rapids Michigan and spoke, I was interview by the Grand Rapids Press (GR is Amway land, Devos and Van Andel land), the paper ended up using a bunch of quotes from me that were picked up across the state.
1996 – Clinton all the way, more out of a sense of defending him from the bullshit from Republicans, lesser of two evils to some extent.
2000 – Wasn’t thrilled that Gore got the nomination, Mr. Excitement and I thought the Republicans did a great job picking Ole Bushie boy, he was considered moderate at the time, compassionate conservative bullshit. Of course I was obsessed with the Recount, bastards….insert expletives here.
2004 – Depression, Kerry was a horrible pick, WTF were the democrats thinking, I guess the fields wasn’t that great to begin with. I think I originally wanted Dick Gephardt and was certainly intrigued by Howard Dean, but he melted down too quickly. I think he quit too soon. Kerry was way too stiff. I was in Baltimore MD visiting when a young guy names Barack Obama gave the keynote at the democratic convention. I told my wife that he was going to be the first black president, we were both blown away by him.
2008 – I supported Obama before he even announced his candidacy, I even made a sign that I put on my office door at the University where I work before he even announced. I gave money to the campaign and certainly did my part commenting on blogs, but I was too busy with my many projects to help out much. Unlike many in my party, I think he’s doing a masterful job, not perfect, but I don’t expect perfection.
1956 – Beginning to walk. . .
1960 – Turned 5 years old. Lived in military housing in Norfolk VA. Mom and I snuck out to attend a parade down town. Somebody gave me a little American flag to wave. A very handsome guy was sitting up on the back of a convertible- he caught my eye and waved to me. I waved back with my flag. I fell in love with JFK that year.
1964 – Living in military housing on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Quite upset about the assassination of JFK. Didn’t much care for LBJ but remember other kids saying Goldwater was for year round school- that was enough for me.
1968 – Middle School and living in military housing in Maryland. Parents are both Nixon supporters- I was a Bobby Kennedy fan until his assassination. Hard to care much after that.
1972 – High School and living in San Diego. Not very keen on McGovern, but for anyone but Nixon.
1976 – First time voting (absentee) as I was away in college. Shared apartment with two roommates- one for Carter and the other a Long Island republican- I took pride in voting for Carter. Although Ford seemed like a nice guy, I could never forgive his pardon of Nixon.
1980 – Living in Maryland- working for a small conservative weekly newspaper. Was a Kennedy supporter initially but ended up voting for Carter.
1984 – Living in Maryland and working for an upstart telecommunications company. Reagan scared me, so I was one of the handful of Mondale voters.
1988 – Still in Maryland and know I voted for Dukakis. By this time, I had read enough to fear George H W Bush even more than Reagan.
1992 – Still working for what by now was a large telecommunications corporation that had relocated me to the Dallas TX area. Company propaganda and PAC was very pro-Bush. Initially, I was a Bradley supporter but gravitated to Bill Clinton. Worked the phone bank for the local Democratic party in Collin County. Attended a rally election-eve at an airport in the metroplex- Bill and Hillary were there with Governor Ann Richards. Decided that night if he won, it might be safe to bring a child into the world.
1996 – Living in Northern Virginia. Worked again for Bill Clinton although I had decided early on he wasn’t my kind of Democrat. I didn’t care about a white house blow job, but never forgave Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and DOMA. Was still reeling from Shrub beating Ann Richards for Governor two years before. Asked for a transfer back east before my son started school- Bush policies retarded school systems in the state.
2000 – Enthusiastically supported Al Gore. Couldn’t believe the whole thing was settled by the Supremes. Went into a deep funk only made better by the belief that Bush would be a one term president since the electorate would quickly find out he was an empty suit.
2004 – Back in Maryland now and supporting anybody but Bush. Anybody with a big D after his name. I like Kerry because he is smart and was in an even bigger and longer lasting funk when he lost. got into blogs at this time- I needed the support of others who were feeling the same way.
2008 – Initially, a John Edwards fan. Really liked his populist message and thought Elizabeth wonderful and someone who would make a terrific first lady. I had grown to appreciate Hillary more but that didn’t necessarily mean I liked her. I was amazed, astounded and very pleased that Obama won Iowa, and after the first couple of debates, became a committed Obama supporter- both monetarily and even taking a week’s vacation and working on the campaign.
lot’s of great anecdotes in this thread. Thanks for sharing yours.
1944 and ’48. As a New Yorker, I thought our Governor would be a good choice.
I remember when this Yankee first went to Mississippi and saw “white” and “colored” drinking fountains. I could hardly believe it. Change does take time – yet when we keep pushing, little by little, change happens. No politician is perfect. I believe the man we elected in 2008 [along with his Veep] is the most honest and intelligent with far reaching vision ever [ <grin> except for Bill Bradley].
1972 Born on the day George Wallace was shot.
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I started what turned out to be a reeeeaaaaaaalllllllllllllyyy long comment, so I turned it into a diary. Look for it.
In the four presidential elections in which I’ve been able to vote, I’ve never given a second of serious thought toward voting anything other than Democrat.
Great post. Interesting both for the common threads and for the different paths we all took to get where we are now. Some of this I have written about before.
That summer a peach faced stranger came up to me in the student union and introduced himself. He was David Boren and he was running against David Hall in the Oklahoma Democratic primary for governor. I shook his hand and promised him my vote. I didn’t think to ask about his positions or anything, but it was an article of faith that Hall was the biggest crook in Oklahoma politics.
There was a real sense of possibilities on campus. In ’72 Viet Nam was still the biggest topic. A lot of students went for McGovern in a big way. A bunch of us went to precinct caucuses, and quite a few of us went on to the county convention where we were a sizable minority. There was quite a contrast between the McGovern supporters, mostly young and a mixed bag, and the Democratic regulars, mostly older and mostly white. Every question became a shouting match followed by a show of hands where we would lose almost every time by a handful of votes. One of our gang was elected as a delegate to the state convention as a token. A bunch of us watched from the gallery as she cast the lone dissenting vote on question after question and the rest of the county delegation looked at her like some insect from Mars. We all felt the enormous pressure she was under as the night wore on.
McGovern lost and Boren lost. David Hall went on to win the election and took his revenge on the DFHs at our piss ant little college. His cronies took control of the administration, gutted the liberal arts program, and fired nearly everyone who didn’t have tenure. Many of the more progressive faculty members left for greener pastures and most of the more progressive students either dropped out or transferred out of state. I acquired a pathological cynicism about politics and stopped paying attention.
NixonFord. I thought Carter’s peanut farmer from Georgia schtick was just another big act like all the rest. Long after the fact I came to appreciate what his presidency really meant, and what we lost when Reagan won in 1980.With Edwards out of the race I was about equally lukewarm about Obama and Hillary, more for the historic nature of their candidacies than for either of them as candidates. But from about Albuquerque on, everything I saw of their campaigns made me think more of Obama and less of Hillary.
In 2008 I contributed money to a political campaign for the first time in my life. Before it was over I had contributed the maximum to Jim Webb’s campaign in Virginia, and more than I could afford to Jack Carter in Nevada. Well, you win some and you lose some.
Going into the midterms I have mixed feelings about Obama’s presidency. His repeated preemptive concessions to the Repubs are a continual disappointment. Even so, he has accomplished more than I really expected. I have felt all along that he is really on borrowed time, in more ways than one, and that the borg is just letting him play out his little time on the stage til they can replace him with someone more to their liking.
Then Florida, and five votes selected our president.
I knew something had gone horribly wrong, but at the time I thought it was just a fluke. I figured one term and we would correct our error. Polar Bear Squares is absolutely right, 9/11 saved W’s presidency. Talk about your cosmic irony…
I was stuck in your traffic jam thank you very much, as Rt 26 backed up onto the Maine Turnpike, and the Maine Turnpike backed up from the Gray exit all the way back to the old Exit Ten. My wife and I were supposed to run up from Portland to Gray to see a house that was being shown. The round trip up and back (22 miles) took three hours.
Ah, so I inadvertently inconvenienced you 22 years ago. Sorry about that.
You and all your dope-smoking friends in their clapped-out VW Westphalia campers, yes. It was like having the entire foliage season compressed into 12 hours.
Goddamn flatlanders.
you should have seen the mess we left. My friends stayed on an extra day to watch the fireworks at the Speedway. There was a race that night.
We were not welcome.
Hanging out with the Rainbow Family or just hanging out?
I didn’t have too much contact with them. We did meet some really crazy hippies in Alpine Valley that we convoyed with the rest of the tour.
1984 – First election I remember. Just remember Mondale got smoked.
1988 – I wasn’t a Dukakis fan, but I disliked Poppy Bush. I had watched the Iran-Contra hearings on TV(While those hearings were a joke, they make today’s look like the Inquisition).
1992 – The first time I was able to legally vote. Voted for Clinton, not because I was a Democrat then but because four years of Poppy Bush was enough.
1996 – I don’t remember voting.
2000 – I wrote in Bruce Springsteen. I knew Dubya was a fraud, but was unimpressed by Gore. And Gore won PA by plenty anyway.
2004 – Voted Kerry of course. I remember hearing the first exit polls and them claiming it pointed to a Kerry victory. I was excited. Needless to say, the let down came later.
2008 – Voted Obama in the PA primary. I had supported Edwards before he dropped out. I knew Edwards was DLC, but I also liked what he was saying. I figured that if Al Gore could change, so could Edwards. Once he dropped out, I switched to Obama. The Clinton’s hung around with too many scumbags(Mark Penn .. Dick Morris in the past) for my taste. So I figured why not give the new guy a chance. And while I knew he was no FDR, I was hoping for a little Jackie Robinson(anyone that knows baseball history knows what I mean).
An aside, November 23, 1963 – I’m in Cuba, Leeward Point, Guantanamo Bay at a squadron party. We’re all getting raucously numb, when a guy comes flying down to our picnic area in a jeep, “The President’s been shot!” he yells, “and there are radar contacts headed our way! We have to launch all aircraft, NOW!” This we manage, as an armed Cuban/Soviet assault on our base is, if nothing else, a pretty sobering thought. Miraculously, there are no accidents or injuries. The radar contacts turn out to be civilian aircraft. We learn later that JFK has died and LBJ will now be President.
I voted for the Big Dog anyway.
1956 – I was in the dark; born in December, about 6 weeks after Election Day.
1960 – Just prior to my earliest memories, so while not truly in the dark, might as well have been.
1964 – Old enough to know who Johnson was and why he was running and I certainly remember still the trauma of the previous year.
1968 – At 11 and change I was aware of most aspects of the campaign. I was thinking McCarthy until Bobby got in and began shaking the political earth to its core. I remember the assassinations, the unreality of it all, the riots in Newark (I grew up in Maplewood and could see the smoke from our front step near the top of First Mountain) – my dad was a teacher there; I knew that Newark was just a 10 or 15 min ride right down South Orange Avenue, I hoped that the riots wouldn’t find their way up that road. I also knew that after Chicago and the nomination of HHH we were in deep trouble.
1972 – acutely aware of the state of the war (my oldest brother at 5 years my senior was at immediate risk (I’m pretty sure he got 1 deferment before the lottery kicked in and then he got a high number that was never called) but not quite old enough to do more than join in on jr. high walkouts to protest the war. I watched McGovern’s nomination and speech in the basement of a church in Falmouth, MA on Cape Cod while on a camp bicycle trip with one of the counselors. I was so optimistic, goes with the age.
1976 – Yippee, I could vote! And vote I did. Carter 1, Ford zip.
1980 – In grad school getting my teaching certification, with Joan Baez’s Woodstock characterization, Ronald Rayguns constantly bouncing around in my head. Reasonable amount of disbelief at the stupidity of the electorate.
1984 – Just left teaching, working at Shared Medical in Malvern and pretty much forced to listen to Reagen speak at the building owned by the Great Valley Corporate Center developer next door – no one allowed to drive in or out of the center for hours on either side of the lunch-time “event”. Managed not to throw up. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get across to my mostly similarly young colleagues how screwed we were getting by Reagan’s tax
cutshift. Knew we were going to keep getting screwed after Eagleton withdrew as the VP nominee.1988 – Beginning of my retail involvement in politics. Called the Chester County Democratic Committee HQ to volunteer for Dukakis. Made calls, did lit drops and accidentally bumped into my area leader literally at the HQ door. Subsequently recruited to be a committee-person which lead to a stint as county Party Treasurer.
1992 – At the end of a convoluted and badly handled scramble for Congressional primary filings in the aftermath of the court challenged redistricting I somehow ended up agreeing to run for State Senate. I campaigned from one end of Chester County to the other, and back again, and again, often ending up wherever Lynn Yeakel was campaigning in the area. Briefly met Clinton and Gore at the Steelworker’s union hall in Coatesville at the start of their post-convention bus tour. I got my ass kicked of course, ChesCo was 2-1 GOP with 75% of GOPers voting straight party ticket. I out polled the Dem registration by 9% (if memory serves) so the week-long bike tour of the district, door-to-door, parades and community events I went to couldn’t have hurt. Clinton/Gore’s victory took a good bit of the sting out of my expected drubbing.
1996 – Recently married with a budding toddler and a move to DelCo, I sat back and enjoyed the 3-way show and Clinton’s gliding into a 2nd term.
2000 – For the first time since college I was once again ensconced in a majority Democratic neighborhood, though not quite yet reflected in representation beyond the local township board rep, having moved into Wynnewood (Lower Merion). I don’t recall if I did much beyond attending a GOTV rally with Gore in Fairmount Park, but I do remember staying up oh so late hoping beyond hope for a positive end that was not to come.
2004 – With my better half now our Ward’s Commissioner, a good bit of work on behalf of Dan Wofford in the 2002 Congressional race for our ridiculously gerrymandered district, and an actual Democrat as my State Rep, I was all-in for Howard Dean from early on in the pre-primary summer of 2007, starting a local DFA group, ending up PA state house party co-chair and in frequent contact with like-minded volunteer leaders around the country. I knew in my bones that it was Dean, not Kerry who could stand up to Bush as would be needed to win come November; a traditional media-driven political assassination away from ever finding out. Once the primary race was over I called and canvassed for our PA state legislative candidates expecting Kerry to benefit with every voter we got to the polls. In the end, while we nailed down PA, it wasn’t near enough.
2008 – I knew Edwards deal with Kucinich was one of the key factors in Gov. Dean’s poor Iowa showing in ’04, but I also knew that Edwards was the only non-centrist in the race, so it was Edwards who I would support. When he threw in the towel I had to decide between HRC and Obama. One look at their campaigns was all it took; it was very clear that Obama’s was the better, both in style as well as substance, and that, together with his truly once in a generation oratorical skills, made him by far the better choice. I gave advice to the local office staff when asked, raised a bit of $, mentored freshman canvassers, made calls and knocked on doors, sealing PA and helping along other states as well.
2010 – I didn’t run for Congress as I would have liked (if I had, oh say an extra $200k or so in the bank so I could campaign full time and hire someone to deal with the kids during my wife’s never ending night meetings), but as luck would have it we have a candidate in Manan Trivedi who’s probably better I would have been (though I sure hope I would have been better than Pike!).