Earliest childhood political memory

[Gothic Sponge]

In 1976 i was in 3rd or 4th grade and my teacher told us as a "homework assignment" to ask our parents who they were voting for. Unreal! My mother was voting for Carter. The next day the "teacher" made all the kids voting for Ford stand on one side of the classroom and all the Carter kids stand on the other. I don't remember what the lesson was about because i felt like a reject. Only 4 kids parents were voting for Carter! The rest of the twenty something Ford kids later picked on us at lunch! Maybe that's why i'm a Dem! ;)

[billbuckhead]

1. Kennedy's assassination

I've wore a tin foil hat ever since. :tinfoilhat:

[streakr]

2. Yea Kennedy, Boo Nixon

I can remember this on the school bus to St. Margaret's in November 1960.

streakr

[NWHarkness]

3. 1960

I was in kindergarten. I remember older kids singing

"Kennedy's in the White House talking to the Queen.
Nixon's in a garbage can, eating pork and beans"

[ornotna]

4. My mother waking me crying

When JFK was assassinated, I'll never forget that.

[HEyHEY]

56. The Charlottetown Accord

[mitchtv]

5. I musta been 5 or 6

We were at Lake Champlain (Plattsburgh) for vacation. and I remember Dewey winning something at some convention( I think) theat musta been the GOP 52 convention?
I also remember the fall of Dien bien phu, I believe that was '54

[fudge stripe cookays]

Watching Nixon the summer of '74

I was 8.

The freaking Watergate hearings were the only thing on TV. No cartoons, no nothing.

Possibly the reason I considered politics "boring" for so long and never wanted to take an interest.

[LowerManhattanite]

My folks had a ritual about the Watergate hearings...

..First of all, they hated "Tricky Dick's" guts along with all their friends. My mom would watch the hearings every day at home as my dad would on the little RCA B&W portable in his office at work. Then they'd discuss it every night for a half-hour. Finally on Saturdays, they'd have a coffee klatsch where a slew of their friends would come over and discuss the week's hearings over danishes and pastries. The kids would be shooed into the yard, but I would sometimes camp by the dining room window to listen in. The week John Dean testified, I remember my mom's voice trilling away during that week's coffee gathering; "He's going awaaaay...He's going awaaaay!" about Nixon.

[fudge stripe cookays]

57. That's so great. Why couldn't I have cool parents? n/t

[DarkPhenyx]

6. Visit to Fort Mackinac

the guide was talking about the fort and said "now this fort has two gates. This one over here opens toward the land and is called the land gate. This one opens towards the water and is called the..." and everyone in the tour group says in unison "the Water Gate". I remember even then sorta getting the joke. Let's remember that I was born in 1968.

[kikiek]

7. I was only 4 years old, but I remember JFK's assassination.

My mom and a neighbor crying and watching the black and white tv. I didn't know what happened, but the memory will never leave. I also remember Humphrey's loss to Nixon. My family was very upset. I asked if Humphrey would still be our president. I was in like 4th grade...I think.

[StaggerLee]

8. Jimmy Carter's Election

By the People.

[Kat45]

9. When I was little, I remember hearing that Kennedy was shot.

[AwakeAtLast]

10. I remember Carter being elected

I would have been 6, I think. Dad always made fun of his brother. I also remember that I thought it was cool that the President was a peanut farmer, and Dad grew peanuts in our garden.

[carpetbagger]

11. "Everybody does it, Nixon just got caught"

That and some close encounters with Henry Kissinger's family.

[amazona]

12. jfk funeral

Does this date me? I also remember the Cuban Missile Crisis but I was supposedly under the age of forming memories so maybe it was all a bad dream...

[coloradodem2005]

13. Mine was...

...my brother telling me that Ronald Reagan is bad. Probably around 1984. Think of Family Ties in reverse. Alex got little brother Andrew to be a Republican. My brother got me to be a Democrat.

[Don_G]

14. Eisenhower

And Kennedy of course.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

Vietnam war blah blah blah Vietnam war blah blah...

I was 3 or 4. Late 60s.

[LowerManhattanite]

27. The Vietnam War was also an early one for me...

I remember my parents watching The "Huntley/Brinkley report" every night and the first thing they'd mention was the casualty count for the day. To this day the words "Da Nang", "Pnomh Penh" and "Demilitarized Zone" make me think of my childhood, they were so frequently used. They projected these massive, beautiful oil-pastel renderings of the important people they were talking about on the news. I remember Ho Chi Minh's picture and Robert McNamara's as well.

[Ready4Change]

15. Trick'n'Treating and seeing McGovern signs.

.

[markses]

16. Sadat's assasination

I was in the kitchen, getting ready for kindergarten (morning version). Actually, I was just eating corn flakes, but that counted as getting ready. My mother was listening to news radio, and they announced Sadat's assasination. I remember the whole scene very clearly.

[havocmom]

17. 1960 and my procrastinating dad had not registered to vote as deadline

approached (we had recently moved) My mom, at wits end, finally told him if he didn't get his registration taken care of, she was gonna vote for Nixon. Dad got up the next moment, hopped in the car, was gone for about 30 minutes (small town) and came back with proof he had met the registration deadline.

The November election came along and she refused to answer him when he inquired that she "wouldn't have voted for Nixon?"

They divorced in 1962. He died in 1981. The last time I talked to him, he asked "Your mother didn't vote for Nixon in '60, did she?"

If he had known her better, he would have known she would never vote Nixon. No wonder to me about the divorce!

[Robb]

18. I remember Carter's concession speech...

...My dad was making his trademark beer crust pizza, and my mom was terribly upset.

[LowerManhattanite]

19. Muhammad Ali's battle against the draft board...

...as our families knew each other (we used to go to his old training camp in Deer Lake).

And sadly, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King is number two. I remember my mom watching the aftermath on a little black and white TV in the kitchen. Dad came home early because things were getting hairy in the streets--which I saw evidence of from my 5th floor window--namely tall plumes of smoke from burning police cars in the side streets of Harlem.

It's weird...I grew up at a time where I thought political assassinations were part of just what usually happened based on their sheer frequency.

[agingdem]

20. McCarthy...

I was a very little girl when my father (Eastern European immigrant who had lost his parents and two sisters in the Hoclocaust)sat me in front of our little black and white tv and insisted I watch the McCarthy hearings. I didn't understand what was going on but I will always remember my father's words "There are Hitlers everywhere!" After all these years, Joseph McCarthy is still the face of the Republican Party.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

60. Now THERE's a quote. Your Dad makes line #14.

See my already-too-large sig.

[x-g.o.p.er]

21. Meeting Hubert Humphrey

He was getting off the airplane that my Grandpa was on (gramps was a Republican political bigshot in North Dakota), and they were chatting as they walked off the plane. I was about 5 or 6, and Humphrey bent down, stuck out his hand, smiled real big, and said, "it's a pleasure to meet you, young man."

All I could do was nod my head and shake his hand. I also remember my Grandpa letting me sit with him at his desk on the senate floor in Bismarck while he was voting on a bunch of bills. Then he made a point of order, introduced me, and all the senators turned around and applauded. I was so scared I almost peed my pants.

It was really cool, though.

[Somawas]

22. Watching the conventions

in 1959. I vaguely remember them being on tv in 1956, too. I know I remember the portraits of Ike and Adlai Stevenson by Norman Rockwell on the Saturday Evening Post.

[SarahB]

23. I saw Gerald Ford when I was 4.

My parents were both Democrats, but I remember going to my uncle's college graduation and Gerald Ford was the commencement speaker. It's all a little vague, mostly I remember being bored, but I still remember it a little.
Allegedly, as an infant though, I had a leaky poopy diaper in a state senators sofa, but I don't remember.

Forgot to say when this was -Spring 1976 when he was still President.

[troublemaker]

24. Johnson dropping out of the race in '68

[JohnKleeb]

25. are they the good guys or bad guys? asked grandma that after seeing Hatch

I also remember Dick Gephardt fondly from those early days, so I have a weak spot for him, and I do like the man much.

[Rowdyboy]

26. 1959 Mississippi state elections...I was 5

and watched returns with my mom. There was a man running names Herbert "Hub" Hosey and I thought that was hilarious. I made a song about "Herbert Hub Hosey and his dear wife Rosie who he gave a Posey" for weeks. Nearly drove my mom crazy. I've enjoyed election returns ever since.

[hunter]

28. Cuban Missile Crisis.

But I had a little brother too, and he worried me more.

My mom cried when Kennedy was killed, and my dad watched television for a long time.

[murielm99]

29. My dad was a die-hard union man, and many of his mentors

had been old socialists and communists from the 1930's.

One of them was a neighbor of ours, and he gave my dad a whole trunkful of literature about the communist party. This was during the McCarthy era, and one night, my dad got frightened about having it in the house. He took it out and burned it in the dead of the night.

I remember my parents talking about it.

I remember the Stevenson and Eisenhower election very vividly. My parents talked about it alot. But we did not have a TV then. We got one the following year.

[DustMolecule]

30. To make a Long (perhaps unbelievable, but true) story short...

...my girlfriend and I had a 'Great Idea' for our town. We saw another town doing it (in the state next to ours when she came with my family to visit my grandmother there).

With our parents encouragement (we were like 12 at the time), we made an appointment with the Mayor. We presented the idea (with our modifications to what we had seen in the other town). The mayor 'patted us on the back' and said something like "thank you - keep thinking". Six months later, the same Mayor CAME UP WITH THIS GREAT IDEA (which was our idea)! It was a huge success and was wonderful PR for him. Never gave my friend and I ANY credit/notice whatsoever (I guess you don't do such a thing when you steal an idea and say it's your own, do you?)

That's my earliest childhood political memory.

As an added footnote: A few years later, this same Mayor (and some of his buddies at City Hall ended up in the slammer because of various corruption convictions.)

on edit: We told the mayor the we got the basis for the 'idea' from 'Town X'. We had worked up all of the modifications/extensions to the idea on our own. We even gave him all of the paperwork we gathered from Town X - as well as all of the new 'suggested' paperwork needed for it all to work in our town.

[surfermaw]

31. President Roosevelt & his efforts to help the south during the Depression

I remember what I was doing when his death was announced on the radio, I was playing Hop Scotch, with a friend. I remember the train that carried his body back to Washington, the tracks had people standing near them for miles and miles, soldiers guarding the tracks. In Georgia,he was thought to be the most wonderful president ever almost worshiped...My haven't things changed.

[LanternWaste]

32. The Watergate Hearings pre-empting the Brady Bunch

The Watergate Hearings pre-empting the Brady Bunch for three weeks in row! That was the beginning of my dislike for the GOP... how DARE they deny me my God-given right to dreamily watch Marsha Brady in all her lovliness through my tender, six-year old, baby-blues!!!!

[AlFrankenFan]

33. It was 1996...I was six years old and living in Fairfax, VA

My father, a Republican, was driving me to his home in Arlington in his blue Pathfinder covered with "Dole/Kemp '96" stickers. We were listening to Rush Limbaugh. As always, I had my ears covered. I didn't quite understand what Rush was talking about except he was constantly bashing Clinton, whom I loved because I thought it was cool that he played the sax (is it any wonder I do now, too?). My father was sifting through the cup holder and pulled out a Dole button. "Do you want a Bob Dole button?" he asked. "No!" I cried. "I hate Bob Dole he's old and scary - I like Bill Clinton better!" My father was stunned, and I remember going to bed without dinner that night.

Fun times. :P

[flamingyouth]

34. 1972 election

I was almost four, and my mom was a volunteer for McGovern. This was back before absentee ballots were so prevalent, so she had volunteered to take elderly people and others without transportation to the polls. She didn't get ONE phone call, and she was devastated. She hated Nixon with every fiber and cell of her being.

Next political memory is of the Nixon resignation. I was in kindergarten, and I couldn't imagine why Mommy was dancing on the coffee table. :shrug:

[DieboldMustDie]

35. Vague recollection of the U-2 incident

[LiberalManiacfromOC]

36. Off the top of my head

I remeber in the third grade i got in an argument about how bush was a stupid hick (not very arcticulate, i know). Yes, i mean the 200 election bush. im only 14 :)

[JohnKleeb]

38. you arent the youngest here

I remember giving the case for Gore in 8th grade, I actually got along well with the kid campaigning for Bush and Buchanan. Gore lost here :(.

[AlFrankenFan]

39. The 2000 election was when we were in 5th grade n/t

[LiberalManiacfromOC]

40. Memory problems

[JohnKleeb]

42. haha

sucka.

[MisterP]

49. the 200 election? for what? proconsul to Osroene?

:P

[More Than A Feeling]

37. Voting for H.W. Bush over Clinton in mock first grade elections

I forget why, though. Needless to say, I deeply regret it now:)

[Parrcrow]

41. Trudeaumania

1968.

[bearfan454]

43. When Kennedy was shot in Dallas

I remember it well. I was only 7.

[leftofthedial]

44. Grandpa telling me

"never vote for a damned Republican."

1962.

[eyesroll]

58. My grandmother told me something similar

In 1984, we were assigned to make campaign posters. We could pick, but of course I made one for Reagan, because everyone else was, too. I was 9.

My grandmother examined my poster, praised the artwork, then sat me down on her knee and explained why "we don't vote for those people."

Needless to say, it stuck.

[libertad]

62. Pres. Nixon's vehicles drove down my street with Secret Service

men outside all the black cars and we weren't allowed to go outside, but we could look out the window or screened door. I don't know what year it was, but I was a very young kid at the time.

[Gothic Sponge]

63. Grandpa knew best!

:)

[Ducklord]

45. Nixon resigning...

...I was seven. My sister was six. The family was vactioning in Hawaii. I had heard the word "Watergate" before, but had no idea what it meant. While driving the Road to Hana, our parents told us that Nixon wasn't going to be president anymore.

"Why?" I asked.
"He robbed a bank," said my dad.

For years, I thought Watergate was a bank.

Mike.

[ALago1]

46. The 1988 election

I was only 6 but remember my parents informing me on who the candidates were. I distincly remember the name Dukakis because it was so strange.

[brook]

47. 1938.

Just starting kindergarten. Republicans standing in front of our house screaming vile things and tossing toilet paper, etc, in our yard. My father was running for Mayor. He was a Democrat.

Better memory from the same era - hanging at the Dem Club with my parents; ski ball wax and the smell of beer and pretzels and all the lovely raucous voices.

[Zomby Woof]

48. Nixon

We had a B&W TV, and I remember his speeches. What an impression on my very young mind. :scared:

I vividly remember his resignation speech too. We had color by then and he hadn't improved much. ;-)

[MisterP]

50. Tricky Dick's funeral with the other Presidents attending

just in nearby Yorba Linda. Paid little real attention to politics, shelving it with the Challenger decennial and my mom's putting newspaper photos of Rwandan refugee children to show us how lucky we were.

[ForrestGump]

51. Earliest I can think of (USA, at least) is Nixon resigning.

[TrogL]

52. Meeting Judy LaMarsh

Liberal politican for Niagara Falls Ontario.

My father had something to do with her campaign.

[Elidor]

53. George McGovern

My parents were huge McGovern fans. 1972. I was six years old. We had signs in our yard. I never heard about him after the election. Dad despised Nixon. He never told me about the birds and the bees, but he took the time to explain to me that the President was a crook.

[Ivan Zero]

54. Watergate, age 8

Distinctly remember griping about Nixon pre-empting everything on TV, and Mom saying "You watch too much TV anyway. Go outside and play." Excellent advice, then and now.

3 years later, this 12 year old was sitting up late watching the 1976 Democratic Convention. Jimmy Carter just seemed like a good guy, and the process of nominating him fascinated me for some reason. That's the first time I remember being engaged by politics.

[HawkerHurricane]

55. 1972 election

Jerk of a kid, the 'most popular', his dad was a major McGovern supporter... possibly even a member of the California campaign staff... I was happy when McGovern lost because it made the jerk depressed.

[Bridget Burke]

59. McCarthy Hearings

We'd just moved to Texas & gotten our first TV. Mom kept watching this dumb show all day with men in suits sitting at tables & talking. I realized later what it had been.

We were for Ike--because he won the war--but reverted to Democrats afterward. Watching the conventions was lots of fun, with Huntley & Brinkley being witty.

[NoPasaran]

61. 1960 election

I remember riding in the car with my mom and aunt when they went to vote. I was four.

[cmf]

64. 1980 election

I was 4. I watch the returns that night with my parents.

[ArkDem]

65. When I was four I tried to organize my kindergarten class

to protest accordion lessons that were being forced on us by our fascist republican teacher. I ended up being expelled.

[GOPisEvil]

66. "Why is it called the Democratic Party if there's no cake?"

Quote of a 4-year-old GOPisEvil while watching the 1972 Democratic National Convention.

:D

[livetohike]

67. Earning a quarter in 1960

for going door to door with JFK flyers -"campaigning". My dad was a Dem. committee man in our neighborhood. I was eight years old. I also remember watching TV on election night with my Grandmother. My mom and dad were at a party.

[elcondor]

68. 1992--Clinton's acceptance speech

at the national convention. From then on, I was interested in politics! :-)

[Kitka]

69. Lurker joining in….. Mine is from 1984.

My dad prepared me for the mock elections at school in 1984 (I was 8 years old) to stump for Reagan on the basis that he had charisma, and "charisma goes a long way, even if he is a freaky president". My dad was an odd duck. He’s an absolute moderate who loved both Reagan and Clinton with equal passion. I latched on more to his conservative views when I was young and ignorant. Thankfully, my liberal family members intervened.

[LSdemocrat]

70. Campaigning for Dukakis in my second-grade class mock elections

Each class in the school was assigned two different states to represent. Our class was Oklahoma and Nebraska. My class voted for Dukakis. Unfortunately the school as a whole voted for Bush. Actually Bush won because the teachers and administrators, who represented California, voted for Bush, ironically (this was a public school). I actually cried because of some of the grief I got from some of the pro-Bush kids in my class.

[mrboba1]

71. Reagan getting shot

Came home from school to see it on the news...

[Cats Against Frist]

72. I must have been about eight years old

It was nearing the presidential election of 1984, and my class held a mock election. I grew up in a dry Christian Conservative town in Southern Illinois. I was the only one who voted for Mondale -- all the rest of the kids said they voted for Reagan because they wanted to "vote like the rich kids."

C

[LincolnMcGrath]

73. Geo McGovern @ Moline AirPort with Gpa+Gma

1972 I think

[La Lioness Priyanka]

74. indira gandhis death and the following riots

[Bertha Venation]

75. Richard Nixon reading his resignation speech. I'll never forget it.

Other early memories:

A political cartoon of Pres. Ford going crazy w/ the veto stamp. It even had a band-aid on his forehead. I drew it myself and showed it around to the adults in the house. No one was impressed.

The day after Carter was elected, asking my stepfather "who won?" and he didn't know and said "I don't care."

Three-Mile Island -- vaguely

Reagan firing the air traffic controllers. I was incensed, but I didn't know why.

Then nothing until the first Gulf War.

Then nothing until about halfway through the Clinton administration.