What is your earliest political memory?

Hey Jim,

Welcome back to the BB!:wavey:

 

That was my first political memory also. I was 5 years old, and watching it on TV at my grandmother's house.

 

Watching President Eisenhower go by in a motorcade.

 

My mother, a Texas farm girl with 6 sisters and 2 brothers, who grew to adulthood during the depression, absolutely could not stand FDR. This was mentioned several times in passing as I grew up. It took a lot of maturing on my part to understand why.

Other than that, like everyone else , I remember where I was and what I was doing when Kennedy was shot.

 

Mines was Eisenhower's funeral. He was sent home as a true soldier/hero.

I recall Vietnam and Watergate being on the news.

 

I remember Carter being President, but not his election...but i do recall our school's mock election in 1980 when i was in the 4th grade. I led the "Carter Stinks" chants on the play ground that day, which the teacher on duty who was a left over from the 60's didn't really appreciate. I guess my political leanings started early!

 

I was in A cappella Choir practice as a junior in high school when a girl came in and told us of Kennedy's assassination. surreal.
It was then I became interested in politics, and joined the Young Republicans. Voted in ever permissible election since.

 

The first memory I have is pretty strong and was during the Reagan/Mondale run. I secretly admired Geraldine Ferraro (most around me mocked her) and I really wanted to see a woman make that position, but Mondale gave me the creeps and I thought he was a bad person.

I was literally scared of Mondale winning and was so happy that I cried when Reagan did.

I think it was the same year that I called into some political radio show because they said something dumb and I called to tell them I was only 11 and knew better than that. :laugh: I don't remember what it was, I think they were talking about the legalization of certain drugs.

 

I recall as a young lad the Truman-Dewey presidential race in 1948.

I don't know if this counts but but a few years later General Mac Arthur as he left the army or was pushed out by Truman, old soldiers never die, they just fade away.

 

My earliest memory that has to do with politics goes back to the time I was 7 years old. It was the autumn of 1964 and the time of the Johnson vs. Goldwater presidential race. I was in the second grade and we had been on a field trip and were coming back to the school on the bus. There was a group of kids on the bus calling each other names: "Repukelican" and "Democrap".

Of course, at that age they had no idea what Republican or Democrat meant. These kids only knew that their parents were in one group and the other group was against them. So they called each other names as 7 year olds would do.

I don't remember JFK's assination in 1963, but I do remember when RFK was killed in 1968. I do remember about 1973-74, asking my dad what all the Watergate scandal was about.

I could first vote in 1976. I was nineteen and remember going up to register to vote. I have voted in every presidential election since (and I voted for Ford in 1976.)

I can remember other current events of the 1960's better than politics. I do remember in 1966 when that man named Speck killed all those student nurses in their dormitory. I remember this most vividly because their pictures were on the front page of the newspaper and I remember reading the article, being horrified that someone would do such a thing.

I vaguely remember when that woman, Kitty Genovese, was killed in New York City in 1964; how she was being stabbed to death and calling for help and nobody would respond or even call the police to report it. I do remember it being an article in Readers Digest some years later.

 

I remember Jimmy Carter getting elected.

I remember all the impeachment proceedings around Watergate and missing getting to see Brady Bunch.

 

And yes, even though I was only a few months old, I remember the tenseness surrounding the assassination of JFK.

 

The first thing in politics that stuck with me was the birth and death of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy in August 1963. He was born six weeks premature to John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy.

 

Are you talking about Theodore?

My earliest memory is the Nixon-Kennedy debates.