General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Who Was Your First Presidential Vote - DU Poll [View all]DFW
(55,963 posts)That was the time his one-horse town paper decided to take a big risk and start a permanent Washington bureau with one correspondent: him, at age 28. My dad actually knew Truman's opponent, Gov. Dewey of New York, since his beat was the Albany state house before taking the Washington posting.
My one big success in the obligatory America History class in my senior year of high school was my oral report on the 1948 election, and I got kudos for my "research." Ha! Some research. My dad got me inside info directly from the author (a friend of his) of the definitive work on the 1948 election, called "Jumbos and Jackasses." I got to hear an election night tape of the nasty-voiced radio reporter who was reporting with great Schadenfreude that "Thomas E. Dewey has been elected president of the United States!" Oops. I cracked up my normally dour (and very British) history teacher by imitating the guy's voice using his exact words. The teacher had heard the original at the time, of course, and couldn't believe this 18 year old kid was accurately imitating a broadcast that happened before I was even born. No internet or podcasts in those days. You had to dig to hear that kind of thing in the original. Or have some Washington "Vitamin C."