Presidential elections in my lifetime:
1972: I was three years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. I had almost no awareness that an election was happening, but I did enjoy one of my older brother’s McGovern/Shriver ’72 t-shirts, because he wore it until it was in rags.
1976: I was seven years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. My second grade class had a mock election. We were told the day before, so I went home and asked my parents who I should vote for: Ford or Carter. I don’t remember exactly what my Dad said, but the question set him off and he went on a lengthy rant about Ford’s pardon of Nixon. I voted for Carter. I still remember some of the kids in that class who voted for Ford. I never really trusted them after that.
1980: I was eleven years old on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. This was the first election I really paid attention to. I paid a lot of attention. I watched debates in the Republican primaries. I watched Kennedy’s speech at the Democratic Convention. I was pulling for John Anderson because he seemed to make the most sense to my 11 year-old mind. But, by election day, I was sticking with my man Carter. When my parents moved out of my childhood home, they gave me a bunch of stuff from my childhood. Among them were comics and drawings I made that year depicting Reagan as a warmonger who was cavalier about using nuclear weapons. I was shocked at how politically aware I had been and how adamantly opposed I had been to Reagan’s candidacy. I remember watching the returns with a real sense of despair and depression. I also remember one other thing from that campaign. I remember my mother, during one of the Republican primary debates saying that she just didn’t trust George Herbert Walker Bush because he had been the head of the CIA. I never forgot that, and I never trusted the Bushes.
1984: I was 15 on election day and going to school in Maine. I had paid a little attention to the Democratic primaries and had supported Gary Hart, but this election passed by without me paying much attention at all. I was focused on sports and girls and music, as any 15 year-old boy should be.
1988: I was 19 on election day and living in Princeton, New Jersey. I spent the summer on Dead Tour, starting in Bloomington, Minnesota and ending in Oxford Speedway in Maine. Then I went to stay at a girlfriend’s house on Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks. I remember sitting on the dock everyday reading everything I could about the presidential race. I remember forming a really dim view of the intelligence of the American people. I did some calculations to figure out how many people needed to change their minds due to the Willie Horton and Boston Harbor commercials to make Dukakis go from 14 points up in the polls to 9 points down (or whatever the numbers were). And then there was the Dukakis in a tank fiasco. I really couldn’t believe that the people were willing to elect Bush when he was so clearly at the heart of the Iran-Contra scandal. For the first time, I was genuinely beginning to feel like a soldier on the losing side of a war. I voted for the first time…for Dukakis.
1992: I was 23 on election day and living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had spent the summer in Princeton, however, and had been pulling for Paul Tsongas in the primaries. I was intrigued by Clinton but didn’t really trust him. I didn’t involve myself in the campaign, but I did enthusiastically vote for Clinton and I rejoiced with Wolverine Writer on election night.
1996: I was 27 on election day and living in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I was convinced that Bill Clinton would be impeached for breaking fundraising laws if he were reelected. It never dawned on me that he would be impeached for a blow job. I couldn’t support a candidate that I considered a lawbreaker and I couldn’t support Bob Dole. I didn’t vote. I had become disenchanted with politics, the Democratic Party, and, especially, the president.
2000: I was 31 on election day and living in Hightstown, New Jersey. I did my first volunteer work on a campaign, trying to help Bill Bradley win the nomination. I first learned how the national press could put their fingers on the scale to marginalize a candidate. Bradley raised more money than the sitting vice-president and was ahead in the polls in New Hampshire until the day he lost the Iowa caucuses. But Judy Woodruff and Bernard Shaw savaged Bradley everyday at 5pm on CNN. The press fell in love with John McCain and Bradley couldn’t get any oxygen. He lost the New Hampshire primary by a mere 4,000 votes and the press ignored him in favor of McCain until Bradley dropped out of the race. I had no use for Al Gore or Joe Lieberman and didn’t make up my mind to vote for them until the Sunday before the election. I read a piece in Rolling Stone magazine that convinced me that Al Gore really understood technology and the environment, and I held my nose and gave him my vote. I had already been radicalized by the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who I defended to anyone who would listen. But the Bush v. Gore decision pushed me over the edge. I became a complete political junkie.
2004: I was 35 on election day and living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I supported John Kerry in the primaries even though I really respected Howard Dean and the Deaniacs. I just wanted to win. I was the ACORN director for Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. I put every ounce of energy I had into getting Kerry elected. When he failed, I was crushed. I started this blog four months later.
2008: I was 39 on election day and living in Malvern, Pennsylvania. I think you know this story. I was for whoever won Iowa, so long as it wasn’t Hillary Clinton. CabinGirl was for John Edwards and in the interest of peace I remained neutral despite secretly hoping that somehow Obama could pull it out. But, really, I didn’t care initially so long one of the two of them could keep the nomination out of the Clintons’ hands. But Obama ran a magnificent campaign that incorporated the kinds of tools I had learned with Bradley and ACORN and in the Netroots. On election night, I finally had a real win. I didn’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils.
So, what have your experiences been?
