Wednesday Writing Assignment (Election Week Thursday Edition)
The boyfriend asked me this morning, What’s your first memory of this being a two-party system? Now I ask you.
posted by kStyle @ 10:59 AM
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Thursday, November 04, 2004
The boyfriend asked me this morning, What’s your first memory of this being a two-party system? Now I ask you.
float
the original kStyle blog.
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2 Comments:
I remember Reagan’s re-election. In the days leading up to it, I asked my parents whom they supported and why. (But not in so many words—I was 5 or 6 at the time.) They replied, without mentioning party politics, that they were not going to vote for Reagan, because he believed in keeping weapons aimed at Russia. I thought he must be a pretty bad guy.
I think I was eight, in third grade, when we had the mock-election in school. Each child was assigned to a party. I was a Republican that day. The teachers explained the two parties’ ideals in broad strokes: Republicans believed in small government, that the government shouldn’t tell people what to do. That’s the party for me!, I thought. I was sold. (Looking back, I suspect my teachers were Republicans.) I went home and proudly announced to my parents that I was a Republican. They blanched a little.
Here's the old broad checking in . . . I remember 1968. I was 10. I remember RFK's murder (not King's as clearly, though). I remember some of the Democratic convention on TV. And, really, that was the last time turnout was so high. I also remember 1972, which is why I've been haranguing (sp?) you all about it--Nixon won in a landslide (McGovern eventually spoke at my college graduation), but he and Agnew had both resigned by 1974. August 8, 1974. As a matter of fact. (We watched the Watergate hearings in my house, and my father is/was a Nixon-hater since the Pink Lady crap in the 1950s.) One of the interesting things about that was that it was a bipartisan Congress that was impeaching him. Another was that the press hadn't exactly become big business yet, owned by Viacom/TimeWarner/Disney conglomeration, and it was reporters, actually, who brought down the president by exposing the scandals.
My dad also said that this was the most ugly campaign he's ever seen, and he's been following politics avidly since about 1946.
Don't give up, people--nearly 60 million people tried to vote this clown out of office. He does not have a mandate, no matter how much he claims otherwise. And you know what else? I have moral values, too, and the include tolerance for people who live, believe, and think differently than I do. And the founders of this country agreed with me. (Go read Garry Wills and Maureen Dowd in today's NY times.)
carla
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