Elementary school. Wearing a McGovern button.
During the 1972 election, my third-grade class all made “Vote for…” posters. I made the only McGovern one.
I think I was in 1st or 2nd grade when some of the older kids came around polling all us younger students if we think Nixon should be impeached. They were doing a class project or something.
Barely knowing what I was talking about, I think I said “yes,” because my mom apparently thought so.
First grade, 1968, we had a mock election. I voted for Nixon over Humphrey because I thought his name looked neat, with the “X” in the middle.
Ed
I remember being the only Carter supporter in fourth grade. I was on scholarship at an upscale suburban yeshiva. My dad the mailman hated Reagan with a mad passion. The other students were an odd combination of the very preppy upper class and extremely Jewishly religious. Since I wasn’t fluent in upper class rich girl or Orthodox Jewish it was not a happy time for me.
It wasn’t a mock election but in First Grade we painted campaign signs as an art project. I think that I painted one for Nixon for god only knows what reason. I don’t know how many of us picked him versus McGovern.
In 1972, I think, when I was about 6 years old my dad took me to watch Richard Nixon arrive at the Portland (Oregon) International Airport.
Two or three years later my Cub Scout troop went to Portland to hear Gerald Ford give a speech. I think it was in the arena where the Trailblazers played, and there were several heavily-guarded entrances with paths to the stage. I remember our troop leader explaining to us that they put guards on all of them in order to keep it a secret which entrance the President would use.
I made a Carter/Mondale sign with my Lite Brite!
I’ve never really thought about this before, but it must have been the Lewinsky scandal.
Oops. Third Grade.
Fourth grade. We did a straw vote in class and I was one of two who voted for Goldwater. The rest of the class voted for Johnson because somebody, I never did know who, had convinced them that if Goldwater was elected we would have school six days a week. I remember being quite disgusted, with the other Goldwater voter, that any of my classmate would even believe such hogwash. “The president doesn’t even decide those things. That isn’t going to happen.”
Unfortunately, an awful lot of voters still seem to be at the level of my fourth grade classmates.
we voted in second grade in 1968. I was one of the few who did not support Nixon…
Watching the Kennedy funeral on TV.
I remember watching the Ervin Commission hearings on Watergate with my mom. I was 4. Specific to the President, rather than the Office, I remember the day Nixon resigned. I was still 4.
- I was just a tiny tot (not even in school yet), but I do remember being over my grandfather’s house watching the CBS Evening News on the very day that Nixon boarded the helicopter and left office. Although I didn’t have any comprehension of what it meant until many years later.
Bush v. Dukakis, 2nd grade. I remember how all my friends and I liked Bush, and thinking that if Dukakis won, we’d elect Bush to be the “Children’s President” instead, and that maybe he would have even more power than the regular president. Then I remember thinking how stupid that idea was.
I also remember overhearing discussion (from some high-schoolers) in the 6th grade of how Perot could “buy off” the electoral college, and thinking to myself how cool that would be.
Dukakis and Bentsen in 1988. I remember Reagan, but I don’t remember his election.
When I was five or six a severe bout of the flu hit me and I was very uncomfortable. I was looking forward to my favorite TV show coming on to cheer me up. At the appointed hour no Gilligan’s Island, no Skipper, Ginger or Mary Ann but Richard Nixon giving a speech, Tricky Dick preempted the SS Minnow. I never forgave him for that.
First grade (I think), which would have been '78-79, I remember sitting in the cafeteria at lunch with my friends singing a political version of the Oscar Meyer bologna song (“My baloney has a first name…”), which ended with “'cos Jimmy Carter has a way of screwing up the USA.”
I believe it was the swearing in ceremony of Bill Clinton on 1/20/93. Our whole second grade class went across the hall to watch it on a TV on those classroom audio visual club like rollie things.
I may be mistaken, though, I vaguely remember being in a voting booth with my dad… And this would’ve probably been the '92 election… So the actual election night might’ve been my first presidential memory.