DAMN STRAIGHT!!

There's Something About Iowa and New Hampshire
NYT 9/10/2007 (link above)

I actually registered to vote before I turned 18. The deadline for the general election fell before my birthday, but the general election was after I turned 18. They actually had someone from the Town Clerk's office available during lunch ~ this was decades before anyone had even considered Motor-Voter bills. You had to actually register to vote with that as your singular intention.

I first started going to see Presidential candidates when I about 4 ~ Ford was trying to keep the presidency and Carter was running against a bunch of other Democrats.

I clearly remember the 1980 primaries when Ted Kennedy ran in the primaries against the incumbent Carter and I was too young to realize that Ted wasn't President Kennedy before. Reagan was running against Bush, Kemp, Dole, Howard Baker and a bunch of other forgettables. I was 9 and I met at least Kennedy, Kemp, Baker, Reagan, and maybe Carter.

My mother was a perfect resident for New Hampshire. She was a political junkie. During primary season it was like the circus was in town ~ well, for all intents and purposes, it was.

We washed our hands in the ladies room next to the female TV network anchors. We chatted up journalists from Spain and Ireland and I recorded radio interviews with at least 3 foreign correspondents before I was even old enough to vote.

It was that kind of education that gave me the poise and presence to discuss nuclear proliferation with a US Senator when I was only 11 and stun him with the fact that it was one of the more intelligent conversations he had on the subject.
I kept in touch with him and wrote to him about KAL flight 007 when it was shot down by the Soviets. And he responded.

It was because he didn't treat me like the preteen I was that I went to work for his re-election campaign in 1984, effectively becoming the youngest member of the NH Republican party. (yes, now you know about my dark ugly past.)

In 1984, the Democratic race was wide open. There were a ridiculous number of candidates in NH. I managed to meet Jesse Jackson, Biden, Hart, McGovern, and possibly, Mondale. I also saw Reagan again.

In 1988, it was mass chaos. No running incumbent, so everyone and their brother was running for President. I think my mother made a point of getting me out to see everyone that year ~ we missed Rummsfeld and Laxalt, I believe, because I have no recollection of seeing either of them.

I left New Hampshire after graduating from high school the following year, but still got back to see Dole (again!) and Lamar Alexander (no idea why) and a few others.

I do miss primary season ~ not the constant polling ~ but all the activity. I sometimes watch it on C-SPAN.

And I do think that being raised in that environment makes one more politically aware and take the whole process much more seriously.

I wish I could say that I vote in all elections, even the local ones. Here in Texas, they have this crazy ass system where you can vote for the two weeks before election day at certain supermarkets? And, well, the whole thing just confused the the bejesus out of me and I never managed to vote ~ I couldn't quite figure out if I was supposed to vote at one specific supermarket or what! So I was not able to cast my vote for Kinky for Governor ~ just as well. I was casting a vote out of some immature sense of rebellion. I had somehow worked out that a vote for Kinky Friedman was a slap in the face for W. Not sure on that logic anymore, but at the time it made SO much sense.

Oh, well, it looks as though I will have to live my primary season over C-SPAN. My coworkers tell me that no one even bothers campaigning in Texas, least of all in Austin, the tiny blue spot in that overwhelming sea of red....