I voted for a republican.

I did not. I just wanted to freak you out.

:P

We just got back from our family tradition of all voting together. My son is 6 now. He loves going to vote with us. But he understands, he's not allowed to vote yet because he picks the candidates based on how funny their names sound.

he'd be sure to vote for Boner. :scared:

he would have voted for Young Boozer for state treasurer for sure. A republican.

One in 84, one in 94. The one in 84 was for Trent Lott as a Representative. It was my first election, and I was in love with a woman whose uncle worked for him. The one in 94 was for Kay Bailey Hutchison, because the Democrat who ran against her (Richard Fisher) seemed more Republican than she did, and had supported Ross Perot and his Reform Party.

I also voted for Richard Nixon in 72 in the quadrennial Second Grader's Poll. I was young, I blame my parents.

Just thought everyone should know.

LOL

Lowell Weicker against Lieberman in 1988 and Lieberman in 2000,

have no plans to in the future. Then again, I've always had a pretty easy choice in TX. Since pretty much any person running on the Republican ticket here is batshit insane, the Democrat is always the better alternative. No matter how conservative they are, they aren't as conservative as the Repug. Then again, I've only been eligible to vote since the '02 elections; I know there was a time in history that moderate Republican pols actually existed in TX.

I will admit to being a Ross Perot supporter in the fourth grade mock election. He had a funny accent, big ears, and seemed kinda goofy, which seemed intriguing to my nine year old self. Plus, I liked the idea of being "independent" and voting for "the person, not the party." I outgrew that idea in my mid-teens; it's sad how many adults never seem to. haha

Kay Bailey Hutchison was more moderate than she seems now.

Texas before the 70s was all Democrat, and the battles were between the conservative Southern Democrat wing and the populist wing. Ralph Yarborough, for instance, who was a real populist, compared to John Connally, who was a conservative. I went to Ralph Yarborough's funeral in the State Cemetery here in Austin, and one of the guests asked me if I'd seen Connally's grave, and I nodded at the large black marker up the hill from Yarborough's. The older man looked at it, shook his head sadly, and said "That's too close." Connally in 1970 was more conservative than George Bush (the father) in 1970. I was five, and in Mississippi, in 1970, so I know this more from history than experience, btw.

After the Civil Rights fallout in the 70s, the conservative arm of the Democrats moved to the Republicans, so the Republicans had the independent moderates of the 60s alongside the conservative former Dems of the old Democratic Party, as well as the real conservative Barry Goldwater types. Politicians like Phil Gramm and Rick Perry switched from the Democrats to the Republicans during the 80s. So both parties were a mix of ideologies.

Reagan moved the whole Republican Party to the far right, but during the 80s and early 90s there were still moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats, and a lot of people still in transition. When Ann Richards won, she did so by being moderate and pro-business, in contrast to the far right Clayton Williams. Even so, she won mostly because Williams kept getting caught telling sexist jokes about rape, and lying, and being generally stupid.

So four years later, when Kay Bailey Hutchison ran, she was somewhat moderate, and closer to Ann Richards and Lloyd Bentsen in ideology than to Phil Gramm. For that matter, George HW Bush was more moderate than Phil Gramm, even though he was campaigning as a Reaganite. He was opposed to the pro-life movement, a supporter of Planned Parenthood (which he had a role in starting in the 60s), and an opponent of Reagan's Supply-Sided economics, but he ran as the heir to Reagan and campaigned as a conservative instead of on his own beliefs.

So I voted for Hutchison over Fisher. She was more moderate, and I didn't like Fisher at all. Still don't--I still think he's more conservative than her. Since then she's moved more to the right, as has the rest of Texas, and my opinions of party unity have matured. :)

Though when I was still living in the one civilized city in the country, I voted for Bloomberg. I can't remember who he was running against, but I remember the Green Party guy was insane, and the dem was no brightspot, either (was it Sharpton's son that year? Or maybe Jesse Jackson's?)

He was kind of a jerk.

Good to see you.

Didn't like him at all.

I haven't physically touched a voting machine since 2002.

(Yeah, they let you bring your kid to the voting booth. Can you do that in the US?)

I really love how into it he is.

How old is your daughter?

I was a college Republican. I voted for a lot of Republicans. I even voted the Chimp in 2000 in DC for reasons which will be obvious in the next paragraph.

To this day, I vote issues not party. There is no human being alive I wouldn't pull a lever for against Joe Lieberman. I voted Lamont last time but had Joe won the nomination, I'd have voted for Schlesinger. In the last CT governor's race before yesterday, I voted Rell over DiStefano because I had worked for Malloy in the primaries and frankly DiStefano was a bum.