What is your earliest political memory?

[Kaleva]

Mine was the funeral of JFK. I was watching it on tv in the living room while playing with some toys as my mom ironed clothes and watched too.

[rug]

1. My father yelling at a complete stranger who was wearing an I Like Ike button.

[Bitwit1234]

143. Brings to mind

I was a poll worker during that election. And standing out in the freezing cold handing out papers to voters. BUT back then. The republicans ladies and I stood together. Talking and acting friendly. No screaming in your face, no hate just friendly talk. Each saying they hoped their candidate wins. It is a shame Republicans and Democrats can't get along like that anymore. Funny I just remembered this. And people bringing out coffee and offering both sides. Yes a friendly time I can say.

[BootinUp]

2. 2nd Grade, Nixon wins, only one not celebrating.

'72.

[BootinUp]

12. Also the night before listening to news

about the election in the back of the station wagon, my parents bitching that Humphrey would have done better, or maybe it was Muskie.

[Pool Hall Ace]

164. Oh wow, that was an early memory for me, too, but

not the earliest. Mine was the MLK assassination. I was only six years old, but it affected me deeply.

[cynatnite]

3. My grandpa yelling at everyone to shutup so he could watch the Watergate hearings. n/t

[Hippo_Tron]

4. Dad took me to vote with him in 1992

I think I vaguely remember my teachers at school the next day being very excited that Clinton won.

[babylonsister]

5. Mine was JFK, too. On the bus ride home, we found out he had been

killed. I was about 7 years old. My home was funereal for the following week. Black and white TV, 3 channels, all somber.

Those were the days.

[WatchWhatISay]

93. I was about the same age, in second grade

and I remember walking down the hall in a line (do they still do that?), and I was crying.

[XOKCowboy]

117. I was in 3rd grade when JFK was shot but I didn't consider that a political memory

I knew it was a huge event but my family wasn't that political and at 9 I wasn't all that up on world politics. It was when I got a little older and realized that I was about to get sent to Vietnam that I started getting political. I think the events of '69 cemented it for me.

[Captain Hilts]

6. The very day he was shot. I was 4 years old and spending the day on my dad's submarine.

Mom had to go to an event that didn't need a 4 year old running around.

I remember the sailors talking about it. "He's going to be okay." "No, he isn't." And so forth.

I remember the day very well as it was already an unusual day since I spent it on the boat.

[undeterred]

7. Finding out JFK had been killed in second grade.

We listened to the news on the radio, and my teacher said "children, today is history".

[Skink]

8. The Iranian Hostage situation.

I kind of remember Ford taking office. I slept through Carter I guess.

[rucky]

9. My mom getting arrested at a no nukes rally

after chaining herself to a fence in front of an Air Force Base.

[proud patriot]

39. high five

see my post below .. at least with your mom it was for a good reason . :-)

[ananda]

10. 59-shaking hands with LBJ at a campaign stop in Dallas.

My dad took some of us kids to Wynnwood Shopping
Center in Oak Cliff, where Lyndon Johnson stood
on a band wagon, made a little speech, and then
schmoozed with us peons. I went up and shook
his hand.

Then in 84, there was a Camelot symposium in
Dallas at SMU, where I met some of the people
in Kennedy's WH. I went on stage afterwards
and met Sargent Shriver. My mom's friend Kay
was crazy about Eunice, and when she talked
to Shriver, all she did was gush on and on
about how much she admired Eunice and what
she did with Special Olympics. Shriver was
so great, friendly, and pleasant and just
smiled and smiled.

I was pretty pleased myself I must say!

[InvisibleTouch]

11. Really vague memory of Nixon resigning.

On TV or my parents commenting about it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Seeing Eisenhower at some kind of parade. The memory is very vague.

[sarge43]

14. Truman's election. My parents were thrilled. n/t

[Kaleva]

19. 1 Truman and 2 Ike memories so far. Wonder if someone has a memory of FDR?

[sarge43]

32. Cleita, Post #29 n/t

[JanusAscending]

116. That would be me !!!

I remember my folks listening to his fireside chats on the radio! I loved the sound of his voice, it was very calming. I feel the same way about President Obama's voice, but find his more "soothing". I vaguely remember FDR's speech right after Pearl Harbor as a 3 yr. old, but it could be that I heard it repeated in movies, etc. as I grew up! I do remember my parents fears after Pearl Harbor, much like ours after 9/11...waiting for the other shoe to drop. Never sure that the planes overhead were ours or theirs!! Oh, and I remember "rationing" coupons and saving all of our fat renderings in cans and taking them back to the meat market. I also remeber buying "savings stamps" in school every week, and when I filled up my book, trading it in for a war bond! WOW, I'M OLD!!

[deutsey]

15. RFK's funeral

I wasn't even four yet.

[customerserviceguy]

16. I have two significant ones, nearly a year apart

I remember being nearly five, and my parents were very enthusiastic about JFK getting the nomination and running as a major party candidate. They tossed me in the air, and got me to say, "Kennedy! Kennedy!!" in an excited voice. Of course, our whole family was devistated on that fateful November day in 1963.

The other one was about a year earlier. I had been adopted from Canada, and I was able to get US citizenship at a very young age before that. I remember being in the courtroom when the judge signed the papers, and he gave me a 48 star flag. Mom still has it in my baby book.

[we can do it]

17. JFK Just Before He Was Killed

[Fozzledick]

18. My mother taking me to a JFK campaign rally in 1960

When I asked why, she told me that Nixon was a bad man who told lies.

Turned out she was right.

[Ineeda]

20. I vaguely remember the Kennedy/Nixon campaign, with some of

my Catholic friends worrying about the Pope dictating to America. (Obviously parroting their parents' commentary.) I thought it was the 'ginchiest' to have a glamorous President and First Lady with cute little kids. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fear it raised, and oooh scary Communism, though I didn't know exactly what it all meant. And of course, the assassination.

[Stinky The Clown]

21. Maybe not my earliest, but I recall an Eisenhower campaign slogan on a billboard.....

.... '56. The year to fix.

To this day, I don't know what they were proposing to fix.

[Hekate]

125. I Like Ike!

[ebayfool]

22. The announcement that JFK had been shot.

The kids all on the playground huddled together - terrified, confused, shocked & sobbing. It took awhile for the grownups to get it together & send us home. I think it was also the first real awareness of the other world outside my little 'world' of family & home - & how much it affected my little corner. The first crack of a child's egocentric viewpoint? The grownups never again looked quite as safe, all-knowing or secure after that day.

[AllentownJake]

23. Reagan's win in 1984

My dad loved that man and my mom was working nights at the Hospital. We pulled out the sofa bed in the living room and watched the returns. I believe I was 5.

The other is watching my grandfather in the convertible in the annual parade where he was mayor. About the same time.

[R. P. McMurphy]

24. Bobby Kenedy's funeral.

What a different world it could have been if Bobby had lived.

[mr1956]

25. Watching JFK on television

I didn't really understand what was going on, but I would stop running around and quietly watch his speeches. I guess I was around 5 years old so it was around the time of the Cuban Missile crisis.

[JanMichael]

26. I have a couple. Helicopters being pushed off carriers 1974; Carter winning...

...Nixon resignation in 1974; those scumbag Somoza shits killing the CBS reporter on film (turned me Left at the age of 12)1982?; The Soviet and USA space connection in 1975 and of course Reagan...

Yuck.

[Narkos]

27. My dad calling Maxine Waters the n word

Forget what it was about since i was only 6 or 7. Remember it distinctly

[no_hypocrisy]

28. The assassination of JFK, although at 6, I saw it more like Caroline lost her daddy.

[Cleita]

29. Way before your memory, I listened to FDR's Fireside Chats on the radio with my

grandmother, who was babysitting me, and while WWII raged on. Yes, I am that old although the talk really made no sense to me then. The war did because that's all the adults talked about. However, then country was so united, and that wasn't hard for a four year old to understand. Being Republican or Democrat was only a friendly disagreement. It's really hard to think about how different things became to where we are today. It's like night and day.

[Lisa0825]

30. When I was 5, my dad angrily shutting off the TV and yelling,

"I am sick and tired of hearing about goddamn Watergate!"

[HughMoran]

31. My dad just could NOT believe that the idiot Nixon was re-elected

We were a very liberal household.

[rgbecker]

33. Trying to figure out what IKE had to do with Eisenhower.

Didn't seem like initials, or an abbreviation. WTF? But loved the buttons.

[spelldmilk]

34. Watching President Carter address the nation in his speech

defining American energy independence as a moral imperative in 1977. I was 8. "We can control our future, instead of the future controlling us."

[proud patriot]

35. eek born in 69

My mom being arrested for hitch hiking from Palo Alto to San Francisco in 1972. I yelled at the cop , I told him he was mean.

Gas lines and my republican grandparents complaining about inflation.

I remember Jonestown .

I remember I cried when John lennon was killed.

[Vadem]

36. I like Ike! My dad was republican and my mom was/is democrat...

they canceled each other's vote out, of course--Adlaid Stevenson vs. Dwight Eisenhower. Even though Ike won, we all loved him, we Democrats, I mean! He was your father's Republican, unlike the craven evangelical knuckledraggers we have now calling themselves Republicans! Ike was a great president. even though he was Republican!

What has happened to the Republican Party since the 1950s???

[nevergiveup]

37. Watching John Kennedy lose the VP nomination

in 1956. I remember being excited about the young Kennedy and we had just gotten our first television set so everything on TV was a big deal. I believe it was a Philco TV and the guy Kennedy lost to was Estes Kefauver. Kennedy had actually won on the second ballot but Kefauver edged him out on the third ballot by enough votes to win the nomination.

[marybourg]

38. Standing at Franklin Roosevelt's grave. My mother bends down very

low to me and indicates a couple standing at the opening of row of tiny evergreens and whispers "See that man and woman? That's Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson. Remember this" Years later I saw the same scene and the evergreens were enormous. I realized I had been there not long after Roosevelt was buried.

[eleny]

52. What a fascinating memory

[Captain Hilts]

86. WHOA! We have a winnah!

[marybourg]

110. No, I don't think so. #29 remembers him when he was alive! nt.

[Captain Hilts]

150. That's cool, but a real life brush with Eleanor and Adlai together is the coolest!

[XOKCowboy]

40. My junior year when it became clear I'd have to register for the Vietnam draft..

and become eligible after my Senior year. This was 71 and I'd seen a lot of very normal boys go to Vietnam and come back as some scary men. Cast my first vote against Nixon thank you.

[lib2DaBone]

41. When JFK was assassinated by the Federal Reserve...

.. They let us out of school early that day. No school buses. We had to walk home.

I remember standing by the Phillips-66 gas station, hitching a ride... in a daze.. with a knot in my stomach. I was 10 miles from home. (Remember when it was safe to stick out your thumb?)

Why no School buses? What did that have to do with the assassination?

Typical school board reaction..it makes no sense.

Life in America makes no sense

[Odin2005]

42. "Giant Sucking Sound"

I was 6.

[EndersDame]

84. I dont know how old I was but Perot/Clinton/Bush the earliest for me

[endless october]

43. probably age 6, President Carter and the hostage crisis. n/t

[Capn Sunshine]

44. 1956, meeting Richard Nixon and shaking hands

I come from a long line of Democrats- one of my relatives was present at the founding of the party, my grandfather worked for FDR. My mom was a family rebel and consequently a republican.

I was five, and went to a function where Nixon was kissing babies. and I'll never forget how creepy he was to me, and how clammy his hand was. I was also creeped out by the crowd of admirers, and I felt like I was in a monster movie.

I've worked for the Democrats ever since :fistbump:

[bluestateguy]

45. The Democrat Party primaries of 1984

and I call them the Democrat Party because the party was so pathetic in '84 as to not be worthy of proper appellation. Hart, Mondale and Jackson? Puleeze.

And yet the general election was a big blur to me. I hardly remember it at all. Maybe because I was paying more attention to the LA Olympics, and maybe because everyone knew Reagan had it in the bag.

A few months later I asked my father why so many people voted for Reagan. He growled, "because they're STUPID!"

[eleny]

46. Stevenson v Eisenhower in 1952

eta: After '52 I remember when the tv news covered Truman, post presidency, taking his "constitutionals" around Independence, MO with reporters stopping him to ask his opinion about current events.

[gratefultobelib]

76. Me, too. My first memory is arguing with kids on the playground of my elementary school. I was for

Stevenson, but of course, I had no idea why except by golly, that's who my mother and grandmother were for! I'm from central MO and also remember Truman retiring to Independence and taking his walks.

[eleny]

167. How cool!

They didn't feature Truman on the news very often. But when they did, it was very special to me. :hi:

[Suich]

47. Watching the Republican convention on TV at my aunt's in

Oakland in 1952..."I Like Ike!"

2nd memory: "Stalin Dead" headline in the Portland Oregonian in 1953. The headline took up the whole top half of the front page.

[Speck Tater]

48. My Dad's "I Like Ike" button. nt

[EFerrari]

49. My mom let me jump on our turquoise sectional couch just that once

and throw leftover JFK literature all over the living room. I was almost four.

That's pretty much been my strategy ever since.

:rofl:

[eleny]

50. "turquoise sectional couch" - sounds pretty cool

[EFerrari]

54. My mom was a happenin' chick.

:)

[Midwestern Democrat]

51. The 1984 Democratic presidential primaries. I had been interested

in presidents long before this, but this was the first time I took a real interest in current politics and I found the whole process fascinating - the debates, the campaign coverage, the convention, etc. I can vividly remember my staunchly Democratic older relatives on my mother's side really in despair that Reagan was a shoo-in for re-election - they loathed Reagan and would have been apoplectic had they lived to see the Republican Revolution of 1994.

[laughingliberal]

53. Mine was my parents leaving on election day to vote for JFK

Next was being sent home from school the day he was killed. And remember watching the funeral with my mother while we both cried non-stop. I was 8.

[EFerrari]

56. I was about the same age, maybe a few months younger.

The week my family sat in front of the teevee was my first crack at grief.

[dusmcj]

55. watching the House Watergate hearings at age 8. Welcome to America. /nt

[EFerrari]

58. I got kicked out of my college library for laughing out loud

while reading the transcripts. That was a wild time.

[Broken_Hero]

57. Meeting Bill Sheffield, then Governor of Alaska

in the early 80's. He was flying on the last flight of the Grumman Goose airplane in SE Alaska, after the flight was over, the plane was decommissioned by the airline outfit.

[Blue_In_AK]

59. Very early I remember Harry Truman

and the Korean War because I had an uncle who was a soldier.

[dalaigh lllama]

60. My first memory was mixing religion and politics

Our parish had just acquired a new priest whose last name was Kennedy, and when the nun asked us lil' tykes if we knew who the new priest was, I raised my hand and shouted, "I know! It's Father Vote-for-Kennedy!" :D

[Kaleva]

82. LOL!

[Quantess]

61. Probably seeing the Jim Jones kool-aid drinking cult mass murder all over the news

It was the first news story I remember seeing. I was just a little kid, but I was morbidly fascinated by the story.

I think it was TIME magazine that had all the gruesome photos of the dead cult members. We had that magazine in the house.

[Quantess]

102. I believe this is the TIME cover from 1978

about the "Jonestown Massacre"



I was just 7.

[proud patriot]

118. I was 9

[Arkansas Granny]

62. When Eisenhower was elected in 1952. My dad voted for him, but my

mother voted for Stevenson. Most times they cancelled each others vote.

[Liberal_in_LA]

63. playing outside while the adults watched RFK's funeral

[tabbycat31]

64. voting for Michael Dukakis in my school election (3rd grade)

[leeroysphitz]

65. Remarks on a local news show by Detroit "Channel 7" anchorman Bill Bonds.

He was commenting on a pay raise that then Detroit Mayor Coleman Young approved for himself making him the highest paid mayor in the U.S. and therefore the highest paid mayor, according to Mr. Bonds, in the universe. This was in the mid to late 70s and references to outer space were very hip.

I remember laughing at this notion as I watched the family TV laying on the floor with my parents sitting on horrible orange, fuzzy armchairs behind me.

[Posteritatis]

66. The Soviet collapse throwing my social studies textbooks into chaos in elementary

We got them issued with these "omg we so didn't see this coming" type notice tacked into them.

The first one I was really truly Aware of, as opposed to just remembering, was the Gulf War.

[Rhiannon12866]

67. When I was little, Dad used to take me into the voting booth with him and let me pull the levers...

I have no idea who I was voting for, but I'm willing to bet that they were Republicans. :hide:

[Warpy]

68. My mother watching the HUAC hearings white knuckled

all the time, wondering if somebody would remember her brief flirtation with the party in the 30s when they were the only ones standing against Hitler.

She needn't have worried, nobody cared unless the target had a job somebody else wanted or a neighbor had a grudge. However, the fear about the latter was pervasive. Nobody who didn't live through it can possibly know how bad it was. May McCarthy and all his recent right wing apologists rot in hell.

To this day, I have trouble signing my name to any petitions.

[jwirr]

101. That is my second memory - the day McCarthy died our 2nd grade

teacher forced us to pray for him. My parents were furious because our prayer would have gone something like "Thank you, God for rescuing us from Sen. McCarthy."

[Odin2005]

183. Wow, that's scary!

:wow:

[StarfarerBill]

Watching the Watergate hearings on TV...

...and being thought of as so cute by my grandmother and aunt as I explained what they were about (I was 9 at the time). I remember seeing news reports from Viet Nam earlier, but didn't pay attention to them.

Great question, Kaleva. :)

[NYCGirl]

69. My parents had a sticker on the front door of our apartment that said, "Madly for

Adlai."

[DebbieCDC]

70. JFK in West Virginia during the 1960 campaign

We lived just across the river in Ohio and it was BIG STUFF to have someone come to WV, let me tell you!

[frylock]

71. nixon's resignation

i was 8 years old.

[PADemD]

72. My earliest political memory

was watching my great grandmother (all dressed up) leave her house to go vote. I was probably 6. Election day was an important event at our house, too. Everyone went to the polls.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

73. The radio is on

There is a news bulletin. My mother gasps and runs to the phone. She calls up my grandparents and says, "Stalin died."

I was not quite three years old. I had no idea who Stalin was, of course, but in retrospect, this would have been huge news for my Latvian grandfather. The emotion of the moment must have made a deep impression on me.

Another memory of that year is going to my great-uncle's house to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on TV. It was the first time I saw television, which we didn't get for more than a year at our house.

Another political memory, possibly from the same year or a little bit later, is sitting on my mother's lap as she pages through a Life magazine. I point to the picture of an angry-looking man. "Who's that?" I ask. "That's Senator McCarthy," she replies.

[proteus_lives]

134. Your Latvian grandfather probably did a jig and broke out the booze.

Stalin was cruel to the Baltic nations.

[Deja Q]

74. Election 1980. Reagan scared me when I was a kid... didn't know why.

I do now...

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Reagan.html

[Neecy]

75. 1968

I was eight years old and remember the murders of King and RFK. My family was living in Chicago at the time and I was glued to the television watching the police riot at the '68 Democratic convention. Scary, sad stuff.

[cutlassmama]

77. My parents telling me they were Democrats when I was a small child.

I didn't know what that meant at the time, but I'm glad I grew up and learned.

[willing dwarf]

78. News that JFK was assasinated

I was just two at the time, but I remember being so sad, and thinking that I had wanted to marry him (at age two!) -- And seeing my mother crying in her bedroom about it, and then my father coming home later and him crying too. It was so sad.

Then nothing really until a few years later when MLK was killed and having my father explain to me the good things he did to help the country.

[tilsammans]

79. The 1960 Presidential election n/t

[mia]

80. My parents were listening to the McCarthy hearings.

Their friends came over with their children and all of the kids had to be very quiet. I was 5 years old and remember the voices from the broadcast. It wasn't until much later that I understood what it was all about, and more recently discovered some videos.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CTrRfGt0TI

[pscot]

81. Adlai Stevenson

accepting the Democratic nomination in 1952.

[quiller4]

129. Stevenson but for me it was '56. Gran bought the first family TV

to watch the 56 Democratic convention. She also took me with her to wokr at the Stevenson booth at the county fair.

[EndersDame]

83. Bill Clinton beating George H. W. Bush

[Hepburn]

85. Harry Truman playing the piano....an old upright one. n/t

[kas125]

87. I don't remember who taught it to us, but I remember my

best friend and me running up and down the street singing, "Kennedy, Kennedy, he's our man. Nixon belongs in the garbage can."

[diane in sf]

88. "I like Ike" -- my mother voted for Adlai Stevenson.

[struggle4progress]

89. There was a news story about somebody on our big old cabinet TV. My parents were

interested, so I asked who the guy was. My father said, "That's Harry Truman. He used to be President"

[drm604]

90. The Kennedy assasination. We were sent home from school early when it happened.

I sometimes wonder if our earliest political memories affect our adult political views. My childhood was punctuated by three assassinations. That must have had some affect on me.

[snake in the grass]

91. Nixon's resignation.

My family was attending a football game. The game was paused and they played the speech live over the PA system. I remember the cheerleaders began to cry, which angered my mother. I was 9.

[devilgrrl]

92. The Nixon/McGovern election season.

I didn't get what was going on at the time but mom was for McGovern and my grandfather was for Nixon. He and my grandma came to visit - saw mom's McGovern bumper-sticker and he threatened (jokingly :silly:) to drive back home.

And that is about it.

[jwirr]

94. Cuddling with my mother as she cried while listening to FDR's funeral.

At the time I did not fully understand but I knew my mother was very upset about a great man. I was told that at the bombing of Pearl Harbor I was 3 monts old and with my parents at a movie - the movie was stopped to announce the event and everyone went home.

[MilesColtrane]

95. Arguing with another nine-year-old on the playground that McGovern should be President...

...instead of Nixon.

[GReedDiamond]

96. The Nixon/Kennedy debates. nt

[Neoma]

97. Clinton's second presidential campaign on TV.

[Extend a Hand]

98. my dad complaining about Martin Luther King

I don't remember what he was upset about. I think the civil rights movement must have been a source of disagreement between my parents because one of my early memories was going to the bathroom in JM Fields (early 60's) and asking my mom why there were ladies, mens, and colored restrooms. My mom said, that's just they way it is but it's wrong.

[XemaSab]

99. 1980 election

:P

[frazzled]

100. Adlai Stevenson and watching the Democratic convention in 1956

My mother was a huge Stevenson fan, and I remember being a little girl (I was six) and watching the convention with my parents. Huntley and Brinkley reporting.

I remember also being shepherded with my first-grade class into the school gym to watch the Eisenhower inauguration on television. We sat on the floor and understood very little of what was going on.

[BrklynLiberal]

104. Same here. My parents were big Stevenson backers.

[CK_John]

103. The nuns making us pray for the Senator from WI and reporting on the McCarthy TV hearings. n/t

[TexasObserver]

105. 1956. Standing in front of the TV and seeing Ike and Adlai.

And understanding that these two guys were running for president, and having a vague idea of who that was.

I was more interested in Buffalo Bob, Clarabell the Clown, and Howdy Doody.

I was 26.







Kidding! I was 6 years old.

[Liberty Belle]

106. I saw JFK in a motorcade in San Diego, a couple of months before he died. I was in 1st. grade.

[Bluenorthwest]

107. JFK's death

I was 4.

[ezgoingrl]

108. Ford pardoning Nixon.

I was 4 and even I knew Nixon shouldn't be getting away with lying his butt off like that.

[Prism]

109. Reagan bombing Libya

Odd, but true.

[VPStoltz]

111. Sitting on the steps of my PS in 1960 telling voters coming in to vote for Kennedy.

My mother adored the family - my dad not so much.
A memorial service telecast from Germany was the first time I heard Beethoven.
I've been a liberal and professional musician ever since.

[shanti]

112. mine was jfk too, his assasination specifically

my earliest political memory at age 9.

[akbacchus_BC]

113. Can people from other countries respond?

[kickysnana]

114. Being told that a bald man on TV was President Eisenhower

..and thinking with my 30 month old brain, if he was President how come he had no hair?

I remember almost preverbal because my Dad's youngest brother lived with us when I was about 16-18 months old and when I saw him I always thought "little daddy" before his name popped into my head. Dad was 5" 11" and Uncle was 5" 7". Dad said at his brother's funeral that I was standing on the floor of the front seat of the Hudson, looking over the dashboard out the windshield when Uncle stopped short and I bumped my face on the dashboard. I told him he was a bad. Late 1952.

[Libertas1776]

115. When I was little, finding a friend

insulted after I had said "Republicans are so stupid" or something to that effect ( I had heard it on TV and absentmindedly repeated it, not knowing what it meant) because as he then explained, his parents were Republicans. Of course when I ask my mother what she was, she replied "a Democrat." She voted just as her mother did and so on. From that point on, I identified with the Democrats.

[ChicagoSuz219]

119. A TV interview with JFK & Jackie... she was pregnant...

....I seem to remember clips of her as a young girl riding on a horse, just like Liz Taylor in "National Velvet." May not have been the same show...

[Maine-ah]

120. Ronald Reagan being elected president. I was 6

and I remember my parents being pissed.....I got curious and started getting an interest in politics at that point.

[The Green Manalishi]

121. My dad referring to LBJ as an Asshole

I forget the context. Was probably 5 or 6. I must have been 7 or 8 before I figured out that "Goddamned Democrat" wasn't one word.

My dad fought for Franco, my mom was a wobbly; yeah we had interesting political conversations; the one rule in our household was that you could NEVER lose your temper or attack the other person, to this day I lose all respect for anyone who raises their voice and/or can't present their opinions in formal debate style.

[Xicano]

122. Vietnam war and war protest

eom

[Contrary1]

123. Eisenhower...Damn, I was young then.

I remember that the old black and white TV was not so entertaining when he was on it. I must have been all of 6 years old.

[Hekate]

124. Eisenhower and Nixon running for Pres and VP. I thought they were running against each other...

... and I tried to conduct a poll of my parents as to which one they wanted to vote for. I remember making hatch marks on a piece of paper. Finally one of them (my dad, I think) told me Ike and Dick were on the same side. I was probably 8 years old.

Hekate

[Common Sense Party]

126. Carter telling us to lower the thermostat and wear sweaters.

[TorchTheWitch]

127. Nixon resigning n/t

[enigmatic]

128. The night Bobby Kennedy was killed

I was 5; I remember my parents watching the bulletins very late into the night in a motel room we were staying in while on vacation.

[provis99]

130. the day Nixon resigned.

I didn't quite know he was the President though; my dad kept calling him a "crook" and an "asshole" while watching the tv, so I thought that's what his job was. Nixon, the professional crook and asshole.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

131. Wanting Jimmy Carter To Beat Reagan

For some reason, I remember really wanting Jimmy Carter to beat Ronald Reagan in 1980 and not knowing why. I was 8 and in the third grade, and my parents weren't particularly politically involved (so I know it wasn't something I heard from them and then started repeating). So you see, I was ahead of my time even back then. Had I been allowed to vote as an 8-year-old, I would have voted the right way. I then remember, in the 7th grade, being the only one in my class who supported Mondale in my class' mock election. Apparently, I was dyed in the wool, even from birth.

[Quantess]

132. The Youngest? I was in Kindergarten, and we had a mock-election

between Carter and Ford. I put my silly little paper square marked with X in the Carter box. I was about 6 years old.

In my classroom, Carter lost by about 2-1

[sakabatou]

133. '96 election cycle

[proteus_lives]

135. Bush Sr getting elected.

I seem to remember thinking he had old-man glasses like my grandpa.

[Harry Monroe]

136. The election of Nixon in '68.

I remember that date, November 5, because my little sister was born on that date. I also remember the election coverage, though I was too young (6 years old) to understand what was really going on.

[havocmom]

137. We moved in 1960 & Dad hadn't changed his voter registration

It was getting down to the date when it HAD to be done and Mom said if he didn't get it changed so he could vote that November, she was gonna vote for Nixon. Dad got his ass in gear within 3 minutes of that statement.

Made me sorta curious about this 'election' business ;) Been interested in politics ever since (I was pretty young)

In 1980, shortly before his death, he called me one day and asked: Your mom didn't really vote for Nixon, did she? I replied: Did you get registered in time? Yes? Well, then I wouldn't worry about it, Mom was pretty good about keeping her word.

She never did tell him for sure. She was a die-hard DEM but she also had some paybacks to dish out to dad.

[RadicalGeek]

138. My Dad Taking Me With Him To Vote

I was maybe 6-7 and I went with him to our local polling place.

[alphafemale]

139. Watergate and a lesson in humanity

I was still in early grade school at the time, but I still had a rudimentary grasp of the attempted coup by the executive branch that was Watergate.

I was an early political geek and found the Watergate Hearings more interesting than cartoons.

My parents were both anti Nixon.

But when I came home from school that day and happened to catch Nixon's resignation speech?

I started to whoop and dance.


I was immediately chastised. Nixon was the first president who left office in lieu of prosecution and impeachment.

He's punished enough. They said. It's over. They said. Forgive. They said.


They were wrong.

We should have put all those constitutional traitors behind bars for life.

Cheney and Rumsfeld and others were part of Nixon's coup attempt.

Why is this not common knowledge?

[Vickers]

140. The day Spiro Agnew resigned...our local paper was REALLY late, and

the headline was like 4 inches high, something I'd only ever seen in the movies.

[slackmaster]

141. The assassination of JFK

I remember that day pretty well for someone who was just five years old.

[DaveinJapan]

142. Great topic...thanks!

I have two early ones.

The first was being annoyed that Jimmy Carter kept canceling my evening TV shows on every network to address the nation (I believe it was around the oil crisis times), and I remember thinking that he was a very depressing guy.

That was a vague and early memory though, a much clearer one was in grade school when the 1980 election came up and my parents supported Anderson (I)...we had a mock election in class and I clearly remember that the vote total was Reagan (16), Carter (4), and Anderson (1). :blush:

As usual, the kids reflected exactly what the 'Rents were thinking.

[Corey_Baker08]

144. Mine Was The Clinton Scandal Followed By The 2000 Election I was 11 Years Old!!!

From that election on I knew I was a Democrat in a Hardcore Republican County!

[Raine]

145. JFK beating Nixon, the other is being terrified and having nightmares about

the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was just a child but I still remember the terror, some of it came back after 911. :yoiks:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

146. My JFK button.

I still have it.
It was the kind that has two diff pictures on it (black and white)if you move it back and forth.
It said "HE WILL WIN" and "KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT"

I wore that off to the first grade in 1960 in Episcopal Day School.

Next political memory was seeing Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn's funeral on television.

[CBR]

147. Voting in my third grade class for Bush or Dukakis by putting

a B or D on a piece of notebook paper. I was in Southern NJ and Dukakis won my class by one vote. I voted for Bush :blush: Family is all GOP. My husband and I are now called the "radical leftists".

[annabanana]

148. Army-McCarthy hearings on TV

I was, what? . .about 3 years old.

Daddy was teaching at a "commie infested eastern liberal university" at the time. He had some of his colleagues over, they were watching TV. I knew it was serious ("Shh-h-h-h), and I remember seeing/hearing people yelling on TV.


Of course I didn't know for years what it was that had caused the concern in the household.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

149. The Iran-Contra hearings interfering with the schedule of my afternoon cartoons. n/t

[theHandpuppet]

151. My parents arguing over the Nixon/JFK debates...

I vividly remember my parents, in the middle of my grandmother's living room, having a heated argument with my aunt and uncle over the 1960 Presidential race. My parents won.

[calico1]

152. JFK funeral..

Though the little boy who lived upstairs and I thought we were watching a parade..I really did not get what was going on. My dad owned a 3 apt building and we were in the upstairs neighbor's apt. The grownups were in the kitchen most crying. My uncle was walking around sniffing and cracking his knuckles. I don't remember my other sisters being there, just me and my little friend watching the TV "parade."

[HipChick]

153. My mother calling from the UK, and asking me if I had seen that Obama guy..

my response was WHO?

[mrs_p]

154. my mother crying

when reagan won in 80. it was right after halloween and my sister and i were eating candy which just didn't taste good anymore.

[hobbit709]

155. Seeing the occupation troops in the streets of my home town.

I lived with my mother in the American sector but most of our relatives lived in the Soviet sector of Vienna. My mother had Austrian papers and I, even as a baby had an American passport.
I remember the parade as they pulled out in 1955. I also remember the events in Vienna during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. My mother worked for the Red Cross at the time.

[Mari333]

156. my dad on strike against the railroad, along with lots of other unions

and talks of 'scabs' and 'featherbedding'. this was in the 50s.

[freebrew]

157. So long ago,,

can't remember which came first, the '68 convention or someone gave me Abbie's book 'Revolution for the Hell of It'.

Kent State cemented my leftist leanings.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

158. Seeing my Mom wearing an Adlai Stevenson button. :) I must have been 3.

[8 track mind]

159. Thats a tough one

I can remember David Brinkley and John Chancellor on NBC nightly news. The biggest political memory was the debate between Carter and Reagan. I remember my Dad shaking his head in disgust when Reagan spouted that line "Oh there you go again" I vaguely remember 3 mile island. I asked my mom what happened and she said something to the effect that some people spilled some things and they are trying to clean it up.

I totally remember the Iran Hostage situation

[mdmc]

160. Senate discussing impeachment - replaced The electric company

I remember that I had the tv on channel 13, the right channel, but that my tv show was not on.
I asked my mom why my show was not on.
She said that the President got in to trouble and that the tv station needed to keep the country informed.

[kentuck]

161. I recall seeing pictures of Happy Chandler nailed on telephone poles..

He was running for Governor of Kentucky

[Auggie]

162. The First Family comedy album

Age 5 or 6 -- Probably a few months before the assassination.

[AllieB]

163. Watergate hearnings on TV

I was pre-school at the time. My parents hated Nixon.

[janet118]

165. A childhood friend giving me an "I Like Ike" button. n/t

[Le Taz Hot]

166. Watching while dogs attacked African-American

civil rights marchers. Somewhere in the South. I'm DEATHLY afraid of dogs and that sight horrified me. I think I was 7 or 8 at the time. I started watching Meet the Press and other Sunday morning shows when I was probably 10 or 11. I only understood about 10% of what they were saying but what I did understand fascinated me.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

168. Ronald Reagan pre-empting the Cosby show for a press conference of some sort...

....and my dad just continually cursing the man's name.

[swilton]

169. Primary School Sidewalk

Classmates chanting 'Vote for Ike'.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

170. The First Election Where I Was Truly Involved............

............was the 1992 Election (it was also the first election I was old enough to vote in). I was a Sophmore in college, and Clinton was my guy all along. I voted for him in the primaries and supported him on campus every chance I got. The funny thing is, every person I talked to back then who DIDN'T support Clinton gave me the EXACT same arguments against him as I hear today agains ANY Democrat. Literally NOTHING has changed in their playbook.

I wore a Clinton pin on my football jacket, and one of my coaches saw it and shook his head and said, "You like Clinton? Get out your wallet." Then, when I met my parents outside the locker room after the game (again, wearing the jacket with the pin on it), my mom took one look at it and said, "Clinton? He's gonna raise our taxes!" I also let one of my friends, who was injured and not practicing, wear my jacket during practice one day because it was getting cold, and he took the pin off of it. When I asked why he took the pin off, he said, "Man, I'm not voting for that guy. I'm no Communist."

Here we are almost 20 years later, and NOTHING has changed in the Republican playbook. Democrats are still Communists/Socialists/Nazis, and they're still going to raise your taxes, and they're still going to leave us defenseless in a time of war, and they're still going to ruin the economy. Just as I've always known: No new ideas, nothing new to offer, nothing but attacks (and OLD attacks, at that). Pathetic.

[Kaleva]

171. Years from now.....

someone may stumble across this thread in the archives and think of the (gone?)members who had memories of FDR, Truman, Ike, Adlai Stevenson, Nixon being VP, the death of Stalin, JFK being a Senator, etc..

[ljm2002]

172. My mother being disappointed when Ike won...

...and Adlai Stevenson lost. I was too young to know what any of it meant at the time, but it is the first time I remember noticing anything political.

[Kansas Wyatt]

173. A boring guy came on tv and we were screwed, because....

Every channel had him on, and we couldn't watch anything else.

Especially infuriating if some special was on for kids.

On edit: The boring guy was Ford, but they didn't let Tricky Dick on anymore, because he was a crook.

[greymattermom]

174. Eisenhower

Kids in my neighborhood chanting

Eisenhower Eisenhower he's my man.
Stephenson Stephenson garbage can.

[freddie mertz]

175. The Nixon-Kennedy election.

I was seven.

After that, George Wallace standing in the door and the Cuban missile crisis, following by the March on Washington and the JFK assassination.

The order may be a bit off, but at the end of the sequence, I'm still only ten years old.

[livetohike]

176. Delivering flyers door to door for 25 cents prior to the 1960 election

My Dad was a committee man and showed me how to read the street list and deliver flyers to all the Dems :-). I was 8 years old. My parents let me stay up to watch the election returns come in on election night (but I probably fell asleep on the couch).

[adamuu]

177. Oliver North trial, July 1987

I was 8. My great grandmother babysat me, and had the trial on the tv continuously. In retrospect, I think I understood a good deal of it. However, I finding difficulty in understanding why the guy wearing all the military honors was the guy accused of a crime.

I also watched the presidential debates with her, and asked her who she was going to vote for. She said Bush because Reagan "wasn't so bad, I guess."
That was the extent of our discussion.

[Forkboy]

178. Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater.

I was 9 or 10. Too bad we didn't listen to what he had to say.

I think my next political memory was asking my father why Republicans seemed so mean. Even at a young age there was something about them that just turned me off.

[Greyskye]

179. My dad taking me to a McGovern whistle-stop when I was about 10

McGovern flew into a tiny little airport in Central Oregon for a whistle-stop style campaign speech. I think I may still have a McGovern campaign button from that stashed away someplace.

Later I remember my dad cursing at the TV during Watergate.

[niyad]

180. singing a campaign song for jfk, watching his inaugural address, listening to his address during the

cuban missile crisis, and then his assassination.

[spin]

181. Mine was the race between Nixon and Kennedy. (n/t)

[bigtree]

182. Agronsky and Co. was on the TV at my friend's house

I was young young, but I heard Carl Rowan talking about the Vietnam war. Mom had always mocked his speech - 'This is Caaarl Rowan.' When I stuck my head in the room I saw the American body count numbers in the upper corner of the screen and it kept me on the hook for news and commentary ever since.

[Sabien]

184. 1976 presidential debate

Ford and Carter