(Image from Holden at First Draft.)
The first president I ever voted for was Nixon, in 1972.
Of course, it was a mock election in school and I was in the first grade. I don't know where I got the idea to vote for Nixon. I don't recall my parents expressing a preference that year. It probably just was name recognition for me; I had never heard of McGovern before. Hey, I was 6.
Fun fact #1: I still have a McGovern campaign sticker in the style of a Coca-Cola logo and the tagline, "McGovern: The Real Thing." Coke would sue him today.
Fun fact #2: The mock election in school also involved mock campaigning. We had to make up real campaign signs - posterboard on sticks - and then we could "rally" for "our" candidates in the schoolyard at recess. I guess this was supposed to instill civic values in us. Well, given that the examples of civic participation on TV in those days included marches, we little ones separated into our respective sides and took to marching in columns around the schoolyard. Every so often the two columns would march right into each other, and then we would start hitting each other with the signs.
Hey, that turns out to have been pretty good practice for blogging.
Not to make you feel old, but the first candidate I ever voted for was during the Reagan-Carter campaign.
(I voted for the Libertarian candidate - damned if I can recall who it was. I didn't like Reagan, but my mom (the liberal in the family) was sorely disappointed in Carter.)
Posted by: Gib | August 09, 2004 at 04:27 PM
i stole the election from bob dole by voting for nader myself.
Posted by: rachel c | August 09, 2004 at 05:57 PM
First president I voted for was Johnson, in 1964, but that's because you still had to be 21 to vote in 1960, when I was 20.
I've never had the opportunity to vote for a candidate I was really enthusiastic about. But that's life...
Posted by: Theophylact | August 14, 2004 at 03:35 PM