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

[Saboburns]

79. I was born in 1967 in Lincoln County, West Virginia. Southern West Virginia.

In the Heart of Appalachia. Coal country. Much poverty. More ignorance. And I live here still.

I have been a political junkie my entire life, I guess you could say since I was a toddler. During my formative years (70s thru 90s) Lincoln County politics was a very interesting and highly popular spectacle. At the time there were 2 political factions in Lincoln County, and they were both Democratic. Republicans received less than 10% of any vote, either local or national races.

Votes were bought and sold in the open. Historically voters expected to be paid, and the bosses, they expected to pay. That's what elections were like here back then. Its the reason I started my interest in politics from such an early age. We lived directly across the street from a polling place. And every election day one faction would have a pickup truck in my left neighbors yard, and the other faction had their pickup truck in my right neighbors yard. And it was a steady stream of voters being wooed with 5 dollar bills and pints of liquor. Daylight to dark. We kids played outside in our yard, whiffle ball or tag, or on the swing set. And watched the show that was 100 feet away.

And what a show it was. Especially as the later the day got, the drunker everybody got. I've never seen anything like it since. I mean to say it was a public spectacle. There was no hiding or being low key, it was loud, rough, and unpoliced.

The Feds came round and cleaned it up in the mid 90s. A bunch of people went to the penitentiary for vote buying. And happily it's not that way here anymore.

But boy howdy, watching that show up close sure made me pay attention to politics from a very early age.

In closing I will say this, the fact that Jimmy Carter (who I admire more than any other human) is not a national treasure, and is mostly ignored even by the Democratic Party says all there is to be said about the state of this nation, and where this nation is headed.