What Was The First Election You Voted In?
Allow me to distract you from the tension of today's midterms with this open thread...
Readers,
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty anxious about today’s mid-term election. There’s so much riding on it. Like…everything. It’s going to be a looooong day.
I figured once we’ve all voted (please vote if you haven’t yet!) we could use a little distraction—voting-related though this bit of distraction might be. (I just can’t fully depart from this topic today.) So here’s an open thread for you. What was the first election you voted in, and what did it mean to you?
Me? In November, 1984, I was newly 19, so it was my first time voting. It was also my first time conducting man-on-the-street interviews for one of my journalism classes. I was a sophomore at SUNY Albany with a major in English major and a minor in journalism.
Stationed a few hundred feet from the campus polling place, I found it incredibly awkward to accost voters as they emerged to ask if they were willing to share who they voted for, and how they felt about their candidate’s prospects. I absolutely hated that part of the job. Over the years, as I got more seasoned as a reporter, I grew accustomed to interviewing random people on the scene.
For a few years in the 90s, I had a side-gig doing “legwork” for The New York Times Metro section. They’d beep me at all hours and send me out to do reporting on breaking stories, mostly in downtown Manhattan. When my pager went off I’d grab a reporter’s notebook, screw up my courage, approach people, get the quotes I needed, and then call in my notes to a tape room at the Times, reciting the punctuation, too. It helped me become less shy as a reporter, but I’ve still always felt awkward approaching people randomly in that way. (Open threads are so much easier!)
Anyway, at the end of Election night ‘84, I was shocked to learn Mondale had lost. I’d been so sure everyone in the world agreed that four years of tough guy Ronald Reagan was enough. Although I was disillusioned that night, I’ve never missed a presidential or mid-term election since, and many years I’ve gotten involved in canvassing—knocking doors, making phone calls, texting voters. I can’t imagine not voting in an election.
Okay, your turn. In the comments, tell me about the first election voted in, and what it meant to you.
-Sari
I voted for Walter Mondale in 1984. I had to vote 3 times 'til my guy got in - Clinton, 1992. I recall telling my son this when he first voted in 2016. (What a first election, right?) it took EIGHT YEARS 'til I was able to say, "Oh, this is what WINNING feels like." (He only had to wait four, of course.)
I vividly recall waiting in line in the East Village to vote for Clinton and sensing he was going to win even before I entered the booth. The feeling in the streets - a party was imminent. A first for me. Even though I voted in '84 and '88, I have no recollection of waiting in line, and no sense my guys - Mondale, Dukakis - would win.
I recall watching Clinton on TV and seeing, for the first time in my memory, a candidate with "the eye of the tiger." Thinking: "This guy really, really wants this. In his mind, he has already won." Like an elite athlete. Marveling at his rock star magnetism, hearing women murmur about that. The only woman I'd ever heard murmur about a candidate's attractiveness was my grandmother swooning over Reagan. (SO UPSETTING.)
Those last days when Clinton lost his voice, but kept going, relentless. The first president, incredibly, to say the word "AIDS" in a speech, which caused pandemonium. As a Southerner, I was captivated by his deep Arkansas-ness, his origin story - poverty, single mom, etc - combined with his masterful oratory power. I knew/know Southern folks like that - folksy yet erudite. He was showfolk.
I dug his wife, too. Without whom none of the above would have happened.
Of course he disappointed me in a lot of ways. A LOT OF WAYS. And IMHO he did much to lay the foundation for DJT and what we're dealing with now. But that was all to come.
The first election I voted in was the 1992 presidential election. I was a freshman in college at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. I cast my vote absentee since my permanent address was still listed as my parents' house, back in the small town of Chilton, WI.
I was raised in a very conservative household, and while I had many liberal leanings by this time, I was still not feeling sufficiently confident in my own beliefs. What I remember about that first vote was that I caved in on pressure from my parents and extended family and ultimately cast a vote for George HW Bush. I remember not feeling good about it, and in every election since I have felt the strong desire to make sure that my vote is an expression of MY beliefs, and my beliefs alone.
Of course, by today's standards, Bush 41 is a pretty moderate conservative, but I was still relieved when Bill Clinton won the election and I learned something about myself and electoral responsibility from that experience.
I'll add that the first election I remember at all was the 1980 presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I was all of 6 years old, and knowing nothing at all about politics or policy, I do remember being sad that the guy named "Jimmy" lost because he had the same first name as me.