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Who was President when you first became politically aware?

Who was President when you first became politically aware?

  • Total voters
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Eisenhower was president when I was born and I vividly remember the JFK assassination, but as for awareness of politics it would be Nixon.
 
For me it was Ronald Reagan, and at that time I protested the placement of nuclear missiles in the Netherlands (with about 3.8% of the total population of the Netherlands at that time).

I was very positive when he signed the treaty with the Soviet Union about nuclear arms but as a whole, as a progressive individual, I was and am not a fan of the Reagan presidency. But as said that is not really strange seeing that he was of a very different political generation and different political ideology.
 
Bush II

Born in 1970, I lived my life as an uninformed Republican for the first 30 or so years.
As a white man from Mississippi I was very susceptible to the type of fear and hate tactics used by Republicans to boost their numbers.
I was a Republican and I voted Republican, but I was most definitely NOT politically aware.

911 opened my eyes. I spent several years listening, reading, and discovering all I could. It became an obsession.
I learned that not only was I not a Republican, but that defeating and eliminating Republican control over my Nation is my most passionate mission in life.
I am not a Liberal. What defines me is my opposition to the cancer that has infested our people.
 
Bush Sr., however, I became more socially and politically interested during Clinton's early second term. It's been a steady rise since that time.
 
radcen said:
Who was President when you first became politically aware?

ETA: "Aware" in a non-partisan sense. Just aware of the political realm in general.

For me it was Nixon, though I didn't really start forming my own opinions and studying politics until Carter.
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LBJ-i was 9 when he left office. the Vietnam war was a big deal. I remember the 68 election pretty well
 
Fiddytree said:
I don't know whether to say "lucky bastard" or "you poor bastard."
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I just remember being in a carpool about three months before the election and the lady driving (her daughter and I were good friends) said she hoped Nixon won but HHH wasn't too bad. I remember my mom was working a GOP event (this was before Roe v Wade and she ended up a Dem over abortion) and we got a bunch of Nixon stickers. I remember passing out some literature for the 18 voting age- I believe it was that election but it might have been later. My father, whose brother was KIA in WWII before he was old enough to vote, was a big supporter of the 18 Vote as was my mother.
 
TurtleDude said:
LBJ-i was 9 when he left office. the Vietnam war was a big deal. I remember the 68 election pretty well
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Eisenhower was president when I first started becoming aware of politics. Nixon was his vice president. I remember hearing clips from Everett Dirksen, a Republican, who helped write and pass the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. Because of this, Millennials think Republicans were really Democrats, or at the very least, whoever the bad guys were back then were not their party. I remember seeing Sputnik fly overhead, which set off the "space race" and eventually, the Apollo moon landings.

Richard Nixon ran against Kennedy and lost because he was sweating in the first debate. Kennedy was subsequently murdered in 1963, which is one of the many things people still argue about, as if people need a reason to argue. The media had a slobbering love affair with Lyndon Johnson and all of the jazz about "Lady Bird" and "Linda Bird" and Tweety Bird gave me a rash. I voted for Nixon's re-election in 1972 via absentee ballot when I was in the US Navy.
 
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radcen said:
Who was President when you first became politically aware?

ETA: "Aware" in a non-partisan sense. Just aware of the political realm in general.

For me it was Nixon, though I didn't really start forming my own opinions and studying politics until Carter.
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Much the same. I was only aware of Nixon because all the adults in my life were constantly talking about him during the Watergate scandal.

Remember Ford better, but really Carter was when my political views started to congeal.
 
Goshin said:
Much the same. I was only aware of Nixon because all the adults in my life were constantly talking about him during the Watergate scandal.

Remember Ford better, but really Carter was when my political views started to congeal.
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Yeah. I remember Watergate, and Nixon's resignation and some of the stuff leading up to it.

I remember Ford's pardon of Nixon, his Whip Inflation Now (WIN) campaign and buttons, the 1976 Presidential primaries and race, but was only aware of them. I really didn't have a lot of interest. I also remember Chevy Chase stumbling all over SNL portraying Ford getting off airplanes. :lol:

It was early in the Carter administration that I started caring about politics and thinking of it in a deeper sense.
 
TurtleDude said:
I just remember being in a carpool about three months before the election and the lady driving (her daughter and I were good friends) said she hoped Nixon won but HHH wasn't too bad. I remember my mom was working a GOP event (this was before Roe v Wade and she ended up a Dem over abortion) and we got a bunch of Nixon stickers. I remember passing out some literature for the 18 voting age- I believe it was that election but it might have been later. My father, whose brother was KIA in WWII before he was old enough to vote, was a big supporter of the 18 Vote as was my mother.
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Was the DNC the talk of the house?
 
Fiddytree said:
Was the DNC the talk of the house?
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my father never really talked about politics other than what was good for his business. My mother broke with the GOP when she supported John Anderson for president in 1980. By 84 she was for Mondale. She was a major league Clinton Fluffer. She would have voted for Hillary in the Primaries but died before that happened
 
TurtleDude said:
my father never really talked about politics other than what was good for his business. My mother broke with the GOP when she supported John Anderson for president in 1980. By 84 she was for Mondale. She was a major league Clinton Fluffer. She would have voted for Hillary in the Primaries but died before that happened
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Oh okay. I was wondering if at the ground level the 68 convention was one of those big moments for the family.

My folks moved from Right to Left in a similar manner as your mother, it seems (cultural issues and their political meaning). Except theirs occurred by the mid-to late-1990s.
 
Obama and more relevant to me, Stephen Harper. I see I am alone.
 
Fiddytree said:
Oh okay. I was wondering if at the ground level the 68 convention was one of those big moments for the family.

My folks moved from Right to Left in a similar manner as your mother, it seems (cultural issues and their political meaning). Except theirs occurred by the mid-to late-1990s.
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its when abortion became Legal and the GOP-or parts of it-tried to reverse Roe v Wade
 
radcen said:
Who was President when you first became politically aware?

ETA: "Aware" in a non-partisan sense. Just aware of the political realm in general.

For me it was Nixon, though I didn't really start forming my own opinions and studying politics until Carter.
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GWB around 9/11 when I was 13. Used to be hardcore Republican and conservative up until about two years ago.
 
NIMBY said:
Being in 5th grade on Nov. 22, 1963 on Travis USAF Base in California.
Sent home early from school, my Parents were already home from work--Crying.

Though I understood Dad's vote in 1960 when he was stationed in Morocco, Africa .
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Quite the coincidence .. I too was stationed in Sidi Slimane during 1960 .. That year, there was an earthquake in Aguidear(note the butchered spelling) . Our first lieutenant was Walter Williams .. 8th Air Force , 822 Medical group ?? .. I remember little..
 
I was a liberal democrat when Nixon won. I changed my view of him when Vietnam ended. I still considered myself a liberal and I really liked Carter. He had the right idea about a lot of things but he was not a great orator. Master Bull$hitters make better presidents so it seems by their popularity. As I got older and wiser my liberal views slowly changed to more conservative views. I still vote for both parties but have failed miserably. I voted for Bush the first term and Obama the first term. It is quite obvious I am a terrible judge of presidents. I am absolutely disgusted and disappointed by both of them.
 
Johnson

I was born in December 1960, so I was very young during the 60s, but I opposed the Vietnam War and supported the civil rights movement. Of course I was just a dumb kid and didn't have an informed opinion about either of those issues, but I haven't changed my mind about either of them.
 
earthworm said:
Quite the coincidence .. I too was stationed in Sidi Slimane during 1960 .. That year, there was an earthquake in Agadir . Our first lieutenant was Walter Williams .. 8th Air Force , 822 Medical group ?? .. I remember little..
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Need more time and a better keyboard ..
 
Carjosse said:
Obama and more relevant to me, Stephen Harper. I see I am alone.
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Not only a Canadian, but a young one. Do the kids in Canada wear their pants hanging off the bottom of their fannies like they do in the US?

Just wondering about international fashion trends. I know it's off the subject.
 
I can remember hearing on the radio, back before we had the old B and W TV, that the federal budget had reached the astounding figure of $200 billion dollars.

Eisenhower was president.

When Eisenhower's second term was up, I'd turned 18, but the voters still hadn't lowered the voting age, so I couldn't vote for Kennedy.

When they shot Kennedy (I still am not sure that THEY is the improper pronoun for that one), I had just turned 21. That's one political event that still sticks in my mind.

When Lyndon Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater in '64, I was finally able to vote. I voted for Johnson, as I was afraid Goldwater would get us into a war. How's that for an introduction to irony? If I had it to do over again, I'd campaign hard for Goldwater.

But, since I was just a kid, no one would have listened anyway, so the war in Vietnam would have still happened.

I remember Sputnik very well. That's when we suddenly had to get serious about math and science. I was in high school at the time.

I can also remember seeing my first jet contrail. The year was 1954 or so, and the thought was, "Wow! That's a jet plane up there!"
 
For me it was Carter and the 444 days that engrossed the US at the time. I think the actual point it hit me was when the Delta Force chopper crashed in the desert, part of the elaborate and failed rescue attempt of Carter who basically was milquetoast up to that point and then became a laughing stock milquetoast. It's at that particular point I started to dislike the man and continue to this day after finding out more about him both in office and out.
 
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