What originally sparked your interest in politics?

[Jamaal510]

Here are my main reasons for me wanting to get involved:

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[MotherPetrie]

1. Being in 3rd grade in Catholic school when Kennedy was elected

[summerschild]

2. The twerp in the photo and Keith Olberman.

[Broken_Hero]

3. Same reason as you.

I was working in North Carolina at the time, and seeing our Supreme Court decide who our next president would be was such a damn slap in the face. After W got in via the Supreme Court I got very active, I didn't even consider myself a Dem at the time, but the election of 2000 really grabbed me by the short hairs.

[DreamGypsy]

4. The Vietnam War (nt)

[raccoon]

38. Ditto. nt

[pink-o]

51. Make that 3! N/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. The day I became a citizen I vowed to pay more attention

Kind of my duty if I am going to vote...my first voting election was 2000, I knew it was a coup.

[Hestia]

6. Politics was always discussed in my household (parents, grandparents, etc.)

So it was a natural extension that I would be interested also. I got great grades in Civics.

Edit to add:

But! my dad bragged about voting for George Wallace in front of my friends! I was mortified without really knowing why till later. It's shameful to me to have had a father who voted for that man!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

7. Two answers

When I was in 3rd grade, living near San Francisco, President Carter debated Gerald Ford at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF. I stayed inside at recess to watch the proceedings. I was fascinated by all of it. I didn't understand politics at all, of course, and the debate didn't serve to educate me--I was too young.

I became interested in politics in a much more serious way during the campaign for the 2000 election. I could see that reporters and talking heads were reporting things I just wasn't seeing, e.g., giving Bush high marks for his debate performances. I finally understood that there was an agenda at work, and that "the news" did not constitute an objective reporting of events. I was a Democrat during the Clinton years, but things were just kind of working, so I honestly didn't think that much about politics. George W Bush and his enablers changed all of that.

[X_Digger]

8. I grew up with politics.

My grandfather was a UMWA rep and a bit of a kingmaker in the small town where we lived. He was always getting visits from wannabe dem candidates looking for his endorsement and sitting pols asking his opinion on something political.

He 'retired' after 30 years in the mines, but continued to be a justice of the peace and later a sheriff's deputy until he was 74. Even after he truly retired, his old political cronies would come seeking his advice. Any time we went to town, we had to drop him off at the benches in front of the courthouse where all the old farts congregated to wax political.

[ladjf]

9. The election of John Kennedy and people. nt

[dembotoz]

10. was raised in a socially active church--EUB

evangelical united bretheran
before they were swallowed and dilutted by the methodists

don't know if the church as a whole was active but i sure as hell
was with a bunch that was.

just a matter of learning right from wrong

[riqster]

11. May 4th, 1970

When Rhodes and Nixon had those kids shot so they could get more votes.

[Scout]

12. abortion wars of the 80s

got me really motivated ... before that i was mostly "meh"

[Trailrider1951]

13. Growing up in the 50s and 60s

and being an eyewitness (through television) to the civil rights marches of the times

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=964&bih=449&q=civil+rights+movement&oq=civil+rights+movement&gs_l=img.12...0.0.1.18912.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac..5.img.epGSHSiF4FY

[olddots]

14. I was 10 during the 50's civil rights movement .

i'd like to thank 2 scum bags in a department store that turned my mother and I into freedom marchers by calling us " nigger lovers " for returning a 45 of Tooti Fruiti by Pat ( douche maggot ) Boone because it wasn't the Little Richard original and right wingers were doing everything they could to stop racial equality by having clean cut white dweebs cover what were called race records .
I still get pissed off when I see Pat fucking Boone shilling for some scam and don't get me started on "Debbie "

[RevStPatrick]

15. Mom and Dad.

Mom was an alternate delegate at the 1968 Chicago convention when I was 6, and spent the night in jail.
Dad worked for the New York Times, and helped edit The Pentagon Papers.
The FBI came to our house twice, while investigating those things.
I thought that was REALLY cool!

I remember Mom having political arguments with her arch-conservative father, which always ended with him getting flustered and insulting. I learned young that that meant that you got nothing.

On edit - Also, the Watergate hearings. I would come home from school at lunchtime, and Mom would be watching them. I found it fascinating, and would sometimes go back to school late with a note from Mom saying "Please excuse Patrick for being late. He watching the Watergate hearings" which my teacher was totally into. He encouraged other kids to do the same, but I don't think any of them ever did...

[Quantess]

16. The invasion of Iraq.

It made me hopping mad.

[librechik]

17. got a job where I needed to know what was going on

within a year I could recognize some Senators by the sound of their voice. Within 2 years I was worried all the time. Now (13 yrs later) I know too effing much. I have lost the will to live.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. I was a Red Diaper baby of sorts. But, the civil rights movement got me involved.

[madinmaryland]

19. Watergate. nt

[former9thward]

20. Listening to John F Kennedy describe U.S. young people as being the most unfit in history.

I was in elementary school at the time. I knew he was right and unfortunely it has only got worse.

[Ikonoklast]

21. I'm an Irish Catholic (nominally). We live and breathe politics at our house.

It's in the blood.


Some raging political discussions went on at our kitchen table when I was but a wee lad, and now I have the same with my adult children when we're all together.

Bunch of staunch Democrats who'd rather spit into the wind than vote Republican.

[Lugnut]

22. Current events and politics were always dinner table topics of conversation.

I don't ever remember a time in our house when politics didn't enter the picture.

[MineralMan]

23. For me, it was the realization, in the early 1960s,

while I was still a high school student, that people were not being treated equally. I grew up in a very small town, and it wasn't until high school that I started seeing the bigger world. When I looked, I didn't like what I saw. Minorities were treated as second-class citizens or worse. Women were not treated equally. Around the world, people were starving, while I ate. Nuclear proliferation was threatening the entire world, and population growth threatened the entire planet. All of that combined to stimulate my interest in politics. It continues today.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. Probably, the 1992 presidential election

I was 14, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone, their "national affairs team" was still Bill Grieder and Hunter Thompson, and that pretty much marked the awakening of my political consciousness. (And I cast my first vote for Bill Clinton in 1996; would have voted for him in '92, if I'd been able to.)

[lpbk2713]

25. Katherine Harris and the stolen Y2K selection made me more active.

But I have been a Dem all my life. My first presidential vote was for
JFK and I have voted for every Dem presidential ticket ever since.

[RiffRandell]

26. Being a teenager in the eighties and listening to my parents rant about Reagan.

We would always watch the nightly news together and my mother (who rarely uses the word hate) would say how much she hated him, and how he was an idiot.

My older sister was attending a very liberal college in New England and she would talk about how horrible he was when she was home.

My entire family always voted Dem. When Dubya came along, my Mom said he was worse than Reagan---she was right.

My first vote was for Dukakis in 1988 when I was 18.

Really got involved in 1992 and campaigned for Clinton. Met him at a rally and shook his hand.

[Romulox]

27. The utter devastation of the community I grew up in (metro Detroit.) And people's utter indifference

[Demo_Chris]

28. My dad was a Lobbyist for the banking industry

And politics was talked about a great deal in my home. I went to DC as a kid several times, and I just wandered around on my own while he did his thing.

[tabbycat31]

29. I was really interested as a 3rd grader during the 1988 presidential election

It was then that I decided I was a liberal (the spring before, a classmate asked my 2nd grade teacher what the difference between a liberal and conservative was and I remember identifying with liberal from that day forward) and played Michael Dukakis in my school's debate. I was interested in 1992 (being the only person in my homeroom to vote for Bill Clinton) and then my interest faded as a teenager (I was out sick for 1996 so I have no idea what my school did). I registered at 17 when the board of elections came to my school but not as a Democrat (independent/unaffiliated). I didn't vote in my first midterms but I did in every election since (including being the only one of my friends who voted in 2000 but I needed some GOTV from my parents). I was that apathetic college student.

Flash forward to 2004. My friend and I decided to go to the movies, and I was indifferent on what we saw, so we saw Fahrenheit 9/11. It was like a light switch was flipped and I 'woke up' politically. The first thing I did upon getting home was go online and give the Kerry campaign $20. Slowly but surely my TV viewing and reading habits soon shifted to more political n and ews and MSNBC.

The first time I was 'involved' was in 2008 after I had lost my job in banking (like many in the industry did then). I all of a sudden had time on my hands and did not know what to do with it. I had relocated for my job that I lost and had voluntarily set a deadline as to whether or not I was going to stay in my new state. So I went online and figured out how I could volunteer for the Obama campaign and never looked back. I am still living in that state.

It was after the 2009 campaign (governor) that I figured out that I could do this for a living. I've now worked for Democrats in 4 states and counting and would not trade it for the world.

[villager]

30. Originally? Elements in my own government being involved in the assassination of a President.

at age 4, I think I already realized we were screwed.

and the other side was playing for absolute keeps.

[livetohike]

31. My Dad was a committeeman in our town and taught me how to read a streetlist so I could

deliver political flyers for JFK's campaign in 1960. I earned 25 cents for doing that . My parents let me stay up to watch the returns come in and I was eight years old. I've been interested in politics ever since.

[mwrguy]

32. Reagan

Surviving the Reagan years, and seeing him try to destroy the country and even the world if he could do it.

[bemildred]

33. The Vietnam War. It was kind of hard to ignore at the time. nt

[pnwmom]

44. +1.

[DollarBillHines]

45. Same here

And then there was Nixon

[bemildred]

49. Yep, it just went downhill from there.

Except for Carter's first couple years, before the Raygun Reaction started, it was all denial all the time, and so here we are.

[Le Taz Hot]

34. 1968

[woofless]

39. +1

[Wellstone ruled]

35. 1948 Harry Truman's speech laying waste to

Dewey and the The Rethugs. The Old man finally got active in Union Organizing as a result of listening to Truman on the Radio. As a 7 year old I was attending every organizing meeting and was there when his Dairy went Union. Been a Teamster ever since,as a supporter or a member. Attended Democratic county conventions with the Old man till age 10 then did my on thing when I turned 18 was a State delegate ,national delegate in 68',now that was a very interesting thing,watching the manipulation of of the Chicago Police by the Rethug operatives and others.

All of my siblings are dyed in the wool Teabillies,go figure.

[nenagh]

36. Googling around, I found Newt. Gingrich's 'Language a Key Mechanism of Control'..

Actually see the NYT has the document in a Jan 27, 2013 column.

Optimistic Positive Governing words for the GOP...

and Contrasting Words for Opponents: failure, collapse, welfare, corrupt,incompetent, permissive, unionized bureaucracy,
deeper, crisis, lie, anti (issue) flag, family,child, jobs, taxes, spend....

This was during the early W presidency..and many of Giingrich 's faux words were used routinely to describe Democrats.

I couldn't believe that his propaganda had been swallowed whole by commentators and was taken as a given by many Republicans.

That, Watergate, and Fox News ...

[WCGreen]

37. Back in 1970, I was in the sixth grade....

I participated in the first Earth Day celebration. It was also the year of the Kent State tragedy. My mom was taking her Masters when the shit hit the fan.

Earlier, when I was 9 or 10, my aunt took me to one of the Italian Fests held in the summer at the Italian Parishes. Carl Stokes was campaigning for Mayor of Cleveland in what was clearly the enemy's ground. He waded right through the crowd, introducing himself to every one who would take his hand. I heard an older Gent say "One thing I'll say for that nigger, he's got a pair coming over here." I had no idea what he meant but I knew enough to know it wasn't right. I got shake his hand.

Told that story to his brother when I was the treasurer of the party here in Cuyahoga County and he was in his last term as a congressperson. He laughed.

I guess I got bit by the political bug early. I wanted to be where the action was, I wanted to be in on what was going on. I wanted to make a difference.

[DearHeart]

40. Upon reflection, it was when Reagan was running.

I used to listen about Watergate, but had no idea what was happening...I was a small child at the time. Was 18 when I voted against Reagan.

[Go Vols]

41. Walking a picket line with my father

as a small child in the '60's and hearing how the R's were for no one but the rich and the D's were for everyone else.

[RebelOne]

42. When Reagan was elected. I hated that man. n/t

[johnp3907]

43. Punk Rock

Non-Punk Rock too, but with the same spirit.
Minutemen
Clash
Dead Kennedys
Gang Of Four
Billy Bragg
etc

[11 Bravo]

46. Bobby Kennedy. I volunteered for his campaign when I was in High School. To this day ...

recalling his murder is like a gut punch.

[typeviic]

48. When I found out about

what the US did in central and South America. You know, overthrowing democratically elected governments, installing puppet dictatorships, bringing in trans-national corporations to steal their countries natural resources.
That is all the money junkies know how to do. That got me politically aware.

[llmart]

50. My paternal grandfather......

was extremely active in the Socialist Labor Party and he tried to educate his grandkids from a very early age. He used to make us fold and stamp his Socialist newspapers and we went with him to stand on a corner and pass them out to passersby. He spoke vehemently about war, especially the Vietnam War. I can still see him telling me not to roll my eyes when he would go on and on about the Vietnam War (this was way before our involvement grew) and in his broken English he would say, "You should pay attention because this will be your generation that pays the price for this." (I grew up in the '50's and '60's.) He was so right about so many things.

[etherealtruth]

52. Mr. Dante Chinni, HS "World Politics"

1978 ... this high school teacher helped open the world to me.

I will never forget!

[bettyellen]

53. My Dad. He said if you don't vote, you got no right to complain about the government.....

Still remember how he walked me to the polling place for my first vote.

[okmonyj]

54. Clenis impeachment attempt

the hypocrisy was breathtaking

[opiate69]

55. When I was 13, in the early 80s,

My then-stepmothers father was a Democratic city councilman in West Haven, Ct. He was a great man, and a huge influence on me. I did a bunch of work on a couple of his re-election campaigns.. also, a couple times a year we would go to a big Democratic party brunch at a hotel in New Haven, and as a result I met a bunch of local biggies (most notably Chris Dodd... god, his daughters were gorgeous!! hey.. I was a teen.. of course that`s what I noticed lol)...
As an intersting coda, the intervening years saw me move far away from Ct and lose touch with my now ex-stepmothers family.. until about a year ago when I found out her youngest sister - who I knew well - is actually a DUer too..

[LeftInTX]

56. Reagan

I had taken for granted that our country had moved to the left with regards to civil rights, economic issues etc. The only thing was Vietnam and Nixon and they were gone.

Getting Reagan elected was like getting socked in the stomach It was like 1964 and Barry Goldwater had won instead if LBJ. I could not believe that this was happening. It felt like our country had suddenly regressed 50 years.