My paternal grandmother was hired by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York to be his labor liason, and then fired her because she was more friendly with labor than with La Guardia. She then became a NYC regional fundraiser for the 1948 Senate campaign for the mayor of Minneapolis. His name was Hubert Humphrey. That began a life-long (and generations-long) friendship with the so-called "Minnesota Democratic Mafia." She and her eldest son (my dad) were good friends with Humphrey and his young protégé, Fritz Mondale. I only met Humphrey, but spent more time with Mondale (still going back a while). My contacts in that group today are the next generation (Al Franken, Norm Ornstein).
Ironically, when I first registered to vote in 1971 at age 19, my very first vote was for a Republican. The corrupt party machine in Philadelphia nominated their criminal bully of a police commissioner, Frank Rizzo, as their candidate for mayor. Rizzo used to get his jollies by beating Vietnam War protesters with his billy club. The Republicans nominated a mild.mannered bureaucrat named Thatcher Longstreth. He was a nice enough guy, but knew he was there as a sacrificial lamb, as no Republican was ever going to get elected as Mayor of Philadelphia. I didn't care. Newly minted Democrat or not, I was not going to vote for some sadistic cop who was living five or ten times larger than his salary could ever justify. So, for the first--and only--time in my voting career, I voted Republican. I would do it again in a heartbeat. That was back in 1971, and my candidate lost. Although I never voted Republican again, I sadly had to get used to my candidate losing. It has happened a lot since then 
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