When did you know you were a dem?

[Singular73]

I loved Clinton(and I liked Reagan, though I was like 7), but had no real political affiliation (though it made me sick what the Repugs did to Clinton during impeachement).

But I chalked it up to politics.

9/11 Happened. It hit me hard. I didn't eat for 2 days. I didn't react well.

Bush got on the podium with the firemen, and I was all for him. I thought, man, this is a good guy.

During the buildup on Iraq, it became absolutely crystal clear to me that he was USING 3000 dead Americans for political gain against Iraq. USING 9/11 for his Agenda.

I have never been more disgusted with a public figure in my entire life.

[Rowdyboy]

1. December 1972....

Mid-way through my freshman year of college, just after the presidential election of 1972.

Nixon had just been re-elected and Watergate had not yet unfolded.

Agnew was still Vice-President.

Then, everything changed...........

[Misskittycat]

19. At age 5, when the "I Like Ike" button a neighbor had given me

was ripped off my sweater by my mother, who completely lost it, and yelled: "We don't like Ike."

My parents idolized Adlai Stevenson; they wanted him to run again in 1960.

[LittleClarkie]

2. Full fledged? Right after I got my card.

In February. That's when I felt like a full-fledged honest to God Democrat.

It was my way of dealing with the fact that we lost. I joined the Democratic Party. I feel like I joined the good guys against the evil doers. We will defeat the Empire yet.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

3. age 15 -1992 - buchanan's rnc speech

the cheering of the crowd to that raw hate told me all that i need to know about the GOP

[Eloriel]

4. As soon as I understood the difference between the parties

Which wasn't all that early since I absolutely abhored politics (and still do). Didn't even vote for a long time, but once I started I noticed that I kept voting Dem. Then I got enough information from somwehere to understand the difference between the parties and it was all settled.

I was born a liberal, and I get more so the older I get. (And I'm gettin' ooooooooooold.)

[deadparrot]

5. I was little...probably about five.

Saw Governor John Ashcroft on TV for a couple minutes and thought the guy was nuts. A Democrat was born.

[paineinthearse]

9. I had the same kind of experience at age 5

but the candidate was different. JFK* was running for Senate, stumped in my town.

* the original, not the current.

[kris10ep]

15. I was young too...

In second grade, we had a class vote on Bush/Dukakis. I was one of 2 votes in our class for Dukakis.

I've been a blue person in a red state for tooooo long.

[Bellamia]

6. I am just as disgusted as you are, but

I knew I was a Democrat long before 9/11. In the late '80s I was a middle- aged college student, born and bred Republican. Took a quiz in a Political Science class, to determine what "Party" you belonged to, and lo and behold, I was a Dem!

[xray s]

7. After Saddam invaded Kuwait

We were using Saddam and looking the other way as he committed atrocities and we were selling him weapons, even as he massed troops on the Kuwaiti border obviously preparing for an invasion.

Our troops were getting their limbs blown off by landmines built in the USA.

That opened my eyes to the real nature of BushCo.

[Firenze777]

8. Bobby Kennedy's run

I was in high school in Virginia, and set my alarm for the middle of the night to see how he did in California. I cried for the next 24 hours. And I've voted Democratic since I was able, in 72.

[nevergiveup]

10. Watching white cops beat on black civil right

demonstrators in the 60's made me a liberal/Democrat forever.

[CoffeeCat]

11. I knew I was a Dem in the Fall of 1983...before I knew what a Dem was...

...that was the semester I started college at the University of Iowa. Iowa is an ultra-liberal, beautiful, progressive college town.

The previous 18 years, I grew up with an oppressive, right-wing, conservative nut job for a father--and a mother who was politically neutered, "I just vote for whoever your father does. There's no need for me to vote for the other party. Our votes would just cancel each other out."

My father once told me that Pat Buchanan was too liberal. He hated our Dem Senator (Harkin) because Harkin championed the Americans With Disabilities Act. The ADA required my father to make his businesses handicap accessible--which cut into his profits. He also made fun of the homeless. Money, clothes and cars were the most important things in our family. My father once asked me if I wanted to go for a drive, "and see how the other 95 percent lives."

After 18 years of this malarkey, I entered the U of I pretty much like my father--vacuous and focusing on clothes and material possessions.

However, after encountering gay people, people from other countries, open-minded people, artists, people who worked to help the poor, minorities, intellectuals, politically active people, people who cared about the environment more than they cared about Rolexes---I fell in love with everything liberalism stood for.

I didn't even know what "liberalism" was or what it meant to be a "Democrat." I just knew that I felt as if I'd exhaled for the first time--after a lifetime of holding my breath.

Thank...God...I...escaped.

[unkachuck]

12. when they stamped....

....'FACTORY' on my blue-collar forehead at birth....I still have the baby picture.... :)

[Singular73]

14. Post it :)

[Gloria]

13. During Reagan--he repulsed me...when he started pandering to

the right over abortion.

It was a miserable 8 years....just like now..only now is ever worse, but not by much...

[Gyre]

16. When tricky was a dick.

Even though the dems got us in deep before tricky dickless.

Gyre

[ashling]

17. when I was a disposable embryo

actually, I was immersed in politics at an early age.

I didn't have a concept of left or right till later, but I knew right and wrong.

[OnionPatch]

18. Early, very early

My father was your stereotypical bigoted, greedy Republican. His racist remarks disgusted me. He was close-minded and hateful. I never agreed with his politics and argued with him from childhood until the day he died about them. Everyone I ever knew that was like him voted Republican. To me, Democrats just always represented the "normal" people. The "nice" people. The "reasonable" people. Even before I understood politics very well.

[earth mom]

20. When I was old enough to know the difference between good and bad.

And you KNOW we dems are on the good side! O8)

[ginnyinWI]

21. My hatred of the chimp

made being a Democrat real.

I voted for Clinton, but didn't care too much either way. But from the time I first saw and heard the chimp in 2000, I was both repulsed and afraid. (My gut instincts were right, unfortunately.) I was really disappointed when Gore didn't become president. But I tried to cheer myself up with the thought, "how bad can it be to have another four years of a Bush?" (thinking he was a conservative repub like his Dad) But we know what we got instead--don't need to go into it here.

By 2003 I was really paying attention! I was desperate to get the chimp gone for once and for all. I wasn't the only one--there was a huge effort to elect a Dem. Rove was also desperate-- to give the chimp some kind of a legitimate victory. I think they wanted a landslide. But Kerry didn't let them have it. I think he really got the most votes, but that is for another post.

I remain a Dem, remain involved, and remain hopeful that our day wil come. I'm so glad I don't belong to the GOP--they are such hypocrites, how can anyone support them?