My earliest political memory was the furor caused by Pierre Trudeau’s Salmon Arm Salute on a train trip through BC. I was 11, and understood that the leader of our nation had just flipped us the bird. I didn’t get all of the hype over it, but it probably wasn’t a good thing. How cool, though. Politicians were these stodgy folk who were BORING, and this guy knew how to be rude!!
Sadly, Canadian politics have not been so colourful since.
I remember my parents talking about Lebanon, but not anything about it.
I remember when Reagan won the 1980 election, and telling my classmate that I liked Carter. Not that I knew anything about either of them, being in second grade and all…
My next memory is of Reagan getting shot.
First political memory I have was of Ollie North being on the cover every single magazine in the supermarket checkout line. I figured he was some kind of general or actor playing a general. I don’t know why but I hated him. I think it was because when Iran-Conta broke they kept interupting TV shows for news breaks. I beleived Ollie North was some how out to get ALF. I also remember thinking the NES classic Contra was based on Ollie North’s “adventures”. Too bad they never really made an Iran Contra video game. That would have been awesome.
Ok, this is going to sound a wee bit odd…
When I was a little kid, I used to play with my stuffed animals. The villian stuffed animals (led by, who else, the Grinch) were the Conservatives. The nice stuffed animals, like the teddy bears and the ones I generally liked best, were the Radicals. The Conservatives would always get the huge stuffed orangutan (it was about twice as big as even the largest of the other ones) to beat up and capture the Radicals, and the Radicals generally suffered under the Conservatives’ evil rule. The Radicals would make up escape plans to get out of jail and rescue other stuffed animals.
I have no idea where this came from! My dad was Republican and my mom was Democrat.
My first real political memory (when I was about 11) was the controversy here in Australia in November 1975 when the Governor-General Sir John Kerr sacked the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. He was replaced by the Leader of the Opposition, Malcom Fraser, who overwhelmingly won the federal election held about a month later. We schoolchildren used to run around the playground having “Whitlam/Fraser” fights.
Well, I remember my uncle coming over to my house and giving me his leather jacket. I was three, and there’s a photo of me in this enormous biker jacket, with sunglasses on. And I remember my mom saying to me, “What do you say to Uncle Butchie?” and me replying, as taught, “you be careful in Vietnam.”
The next thing I remember that was in any way political was watching a procession on TV and asking my mom what it was about. She said a President had died, and when I asked which one, she said, “The one who sent Uncle Butchie to Vietnam.”
Oddly enough, my first memory was of a more local political event; the death of former Chicago mayor Harold Washington. (I had thought my first memory was of a statement by Dukakis on the radio, but apparently former Mayor Washington died a few months earlier.)
1980: I was in Kindergarten, and my school was a mock election. The 8th-graders were the ones running it, and each class took turns filing into the 8th-grade classroom to cast their votes.
This big 8th-grader, DeMarco, told me to vote for Reagan. I asked why, and he said, “Because he’s going to win.”
'Twas the first and only time I ever cast a vote for a Republican presidential candidate.
Probably the first time I heard about Ronald Reagan’s “trickle-down economics” theory, sometime during the 1980 presidential campaign. Even at 12 years old, I could tell immediately it was bullshit.
Some vague Ronald Reagan impressions.
The first ‘real’ memory was in 88 when our class had a fake vote. Everyone in the class voted for Bush except for one girl which the rest of the class yelled at (well not me I only put in Bush b/c I knew that’s who was going to win)
Heh weird that such a worthless state (electoral-wise) has such strong political views.
I was five years old when I heard in 1976 that Jimmy Carter was “running for President.” I immediately pictured him in blue shorts with white piping and a white t-shirt, and kept my eyes peeled for him on the streets.
“But, I thought Eisenhower was the President!”
Tris
Bobby Kennedy being shot. I remember the doctor slapped/hit him to see if there was any physical reaction. That was the bit that stayed with me.
The death of Gamal Abdel Nasser. My Dad was trying to explain the Middle East situation to me. He mentioned Nasser and said ‘he died a few months ago’. It must have been 1970 or 1971 and I was about 6 or 7.
I am convinced that I am a life-long democrat because of my first political memory. I was very young and I loved the muppets. And this horrible man would ALWAYS interrupt the muppets to talk and talk and talk (past the end of the muppets–everytime). And he caused my Daddy to swear at the TV and throw things, so I liked him even less. The man was Ronald Reagan. And I still haven’t forgiven him. : :mad:
We had close friends of the family (I thought of them as grandparents) named Shaw. Mr. Shaw was my other ‘grandpa’.
I remember being horribly confused to see the Shah of Iran getting booted out of Iran, because as far as I knew, Mr. Shaw was still here in New Mexico. I was pretty upset about it: I thought someone was being mean to grandpa. When I saw pictures of The Shah on the news it confused me even more, (Mr Shaw does not resemble The Shah in any way, nor does he wear the head piece).
I was probably 7 or 8 years old at the time. Looking back, I wish my parents would have explained the news to me, since they insisted on watching it all the time. (By the same token, I also thought JR was a real person, and wondered why his shooter wasn’t being arrested 
)
~S
My father ran for the Australian senate when I was 2, as one of the early members of the Democrats, a third party. I don’t remember a damn thing of it, but obviously my childhood was saturated with politics. (He lost.)
The first thing that I remember out of all of it was the big yellow triangle of the No Dams campaign, in Tasmania. Bob Brown is still one of my heroes, I believe he is a genuinely principled politician. He was also the first openly gay member of the Australian parliament, and prior to entering politics, our family doctor. Growing up in a small town, the political life is never dull.
Neat topic. I’m pretty sure my first political memory is Watergate. I saw footage on the news of a demonstration (with people holding signs, and some men wearing “jailbird” black and white striped suits), and my father tried to explain the issues. The main thing I got from his explanation is that President Nixon had to release his tapes, because he was the President of the United States, and as such, the tapes really belonged to the American people.
This saddened me greatly, because I was then worried that government officials were going to take away all the toys that belonged to Tricia and Julie Nixon*, because they really belonged to the American people since their father was the President of the United States. I worried about this a great deal, because it seemed very unfair. I pictured men with flashlights coming into their rooms in the middle of the night for the toy removal, it was a scary scene.
*I knew the President had two daughters, it didn’t occur to me that they were adults. Hey, I was four years old, all “children” were little kids.