How long have you been politically active?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Have you changed sides? moved along the spectrum at any point? Personally I've been active (campaigning, canvassing etc) since Nov 1991 (Kincardine and Deeside By-election) when I was fifteen, although I was a mouthy red for a long time before that.

[qwertyMike]

1. Cuban Missile Crisis 1961

Handing out leaflets in Belfast and being asked "Are you a Protestant Communist or a Catholic one?"

Honest

I was 16

Ulster DU-ers will verify

[Screaming Lord Byron]

3. Bloody hell. That's impressive.

This (former) West-of-Scotland DUer doffs his hat.

[qwertyMike]

7. Actually it was earlier

I was addressing envelopes and delivering flyers for the Labour Party since I was about 13. My Father, a shipyard union guy, was actually a member of the British Communist Party - to his later misfortune - 11 years sentence on the night-shift in the bowels on damp ships as a boilermaker. He wouldn't quit though.

Those were the days. There really was a class war then.


West of Scotland? Used to get the ferry to Stranraer. Mull of Kintyre visible from my bedroom window (Carrickfergus)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. I used to live up on Kintyre - near Lochgilphead, then Glasgow

now Calgary.

[qwertyMike]

10. Halifax

Nova Scotia

I sold out for a while, but now I'm OLD enough to indulge my politial beliefs again. Old and cranky.

[MaineDem]

2. Since I was a 9-year old during JFK's campaign

I've never changed sides. I have become more intense! :)

[Speck Tater]

4. Since attending Sleepless Summer in Portland

and hearing Howard Dean speak.

[VelmaD]

5. Since Inauguration Day in 1977

I was only 6 years old but I remember watching President Carter walk the parade route and deciding right then that I liked him best. :-) Been a Democrat ever since. I remember the mock presidential election we held at school in 1980 and trying to convince all my classmates to vote Carter. That school may have been the only place in the US where he beat Reagan in a landslide. :-)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

8. Cool! I was the Green Party candidate at my school's election

I said I would legalize pot (for which I got reprimanded), but the bloody nationalist beat me by two votes.

[ikojo]

6. The presidential candidacy of John B Anderson

in 1980 marked my entry into politics. I guess since Anderson started out a Repugnican then went onto being an Independent candidate one could say I have gone from one spectrum to the other. I don't think I have. I never identified with the pugs. I think I was attracted to his campaign because he was not Jimmy Carter (I believed the lies told in the media about Carter but have since changed my opinion) and above all else he WAS NOT REAGAN!

While in college I was active in the student environmental group but that's about it and it wasn't much. It was the 1980s after all and political activism was not popular.

I am now pretty active in left leaning causes...far to the left of the DLC. I really wish people would give Kucinich a good listening to because he is the type of Dem I like and wish we had more of. We do not need any more Bush or pug lite candidates.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Around The Time of Watergate

I was 16 when that happened. Pissed me off then, and i'm still steamed.
The Professor

[supernova]

12. Since I graduated college in '84

I got sick of the Reagan gang, and I finally got out on my own to pick and choose my activities.

edit: Mostly before then my noninvolvement was due to lack of a car. Interest? Hell, since Watergate.

[cally]

13. Since I was 14 or 15

I got interested in the ERA. I worked at jobs that forbade partisan political activity for years, but I can get back involved now.

[proud patriot]

14. March 2001

:hi:

[Faygo Kid]

15. 1968 - Clean Gene McCarthy

Passed out fliers and stuff in high school. Really got involved for McGovern in 1972. Earliest political memory: Nixon-Kennedy, 1960 (Should we elect a Catholic? Remember debates around the relatives' table - God bless them, they are all gone now).

[bowens43]

16. for about 30 years......

changed sides? No, I've always been a raging liberal.

[MissMillie]

17. Since '94

When Gingrich got the idea he had taken things over.

[Bertha Venation]

18. Since 1984

I was 21 and a poll worker in Huntington Beach (Orange County), CA. My sisters had both worked at the polls for years & they talked me into it.

On primary day, June 6, 1984, an elderly gentleman came into the polling place to vote, but he wasn't registered in that precinct, so we couldn't let him vote. As my sister, the lead worker, prepared a provisional ballot envelope for him, he began to rant that he fought for this country, was wounded forty years ago to the day on the beach at Normandy, and that we were communists for not allowing him to vote.

I got so incredibly angry at his ignorant comment that it catapulted me into life as a political activist.

And yes, I changed sides. I used to be a religious right Republican, and by way of example, to my shame I screamed "don't kill your baby" at women at "abortion" clinics.

[blueraven95]

19. Since I was 2

and met Walter Mondale, who gave me a cowbell (which I still have). I've been politically active, as in protesting and and going to rallies, and so on, but I've never actually volunteered for an election campaign. And I have never changed sides, although college made me more radical, and I definately understand the socialists in my family now.

[kyrasdad]

20. Gore in the primaries in '88

Then really, REALLY active in 92 for Clinton...

First presidential vote was in 84 for Mondale/Ferraro... but didn't really get involved

[populistmom]

21. Since I can remember

My dad used to have political aspirations (he's very cynical about it now), but as a child I went to so many different meetings, met lots of local politicians, etc. In middle school, I was involved in competitive debating and became aware of many, many more issues. In high school, I was involved in Amnesty and an environmental group. I have been in mommy mode since I was only 20, but as everyone gets older, I hope to get more involved, especially with campaigns (maybe even my own in another 20 years or so).