DUers, At What Age Did You Become Politically Minded and Why?

[VOX]

48. I was 14 and stuffed envelopes for Goldwater in 1964. That experience made me a hard-core liberal.

A high-school desk-mate talked me into volunteering at the local Barry Goldwater headquarters. It was quite the education. I met a far-right-wing, Kennedy/Johnson-hating couple from Cuba; a young man who was clearly emotionally disturbed, and several fairly nice retired Republican folks.

The big night was taking a charter bus to hear Goldwater speak at a downtown sports venue. We had cheap "nosebleed" seats, and a few rows in front of me a very hyper fellow kept screaming, "George Wallace for Attorney General!" I looked around to see a lone African American man seated in the next aisle over, who actually had tears running down his cheeks; clearly, they were not tears of joy. I started to feel queasy and a little dizzy. Back in the bus, waiting for everyone to get aboard, a contingent of black kids walked by carrying professionally-made signs that read, "Afro Americans for Goldwater," which seemed completely surreal. (To this day, I wondered who paid those kids to parade around with those signs.)

Election night was whiled away in a far corner of the headquarters, where I spent most of the evening "necking" (sounds so quaint now) with a girl I had met there weeks earlier. The emotionally disturbed young man kept breaking in on us wherever we moved -- "Oh, THERE you are!" Just a weird, uncomfortable experience from start to finish. Grateful for it to be over. I knew I could NEVER be a Republican like the rest of my family, and I carried my black-sheep status with a kind of pride.

The following spring I was finally able to transfer to my original high school of choice, which was much more liberal and free-thinking. Bonnie Raitt was in the Folk Music Club, Jeff Bridges was just a regular kid in drama class. The teachers went easy on the no-long-hair rule. We demonstrated against LBJ's bombing of North Vietnam in 1965. My left-wing transformation was complete.

The next presidential candidate I volunteered for was Eugene McCarthy, the first anti-war Democratic candidate. I was 18, but at the time, you had to be 21 to vote; still, one could volunteer to help out. When RFK jumped into the race, I was confident he'd be a sure winner if McCarthy faltered. We all know what happened next.

The first legit vote for president I was able to make was at age 23 -- for George McGovern. It was a baptism of a drubbing that would prepare me for being a true Democrat.