Good thing we didn’t have a war declared on us in those four years, eh?

Bush and the government created 45 million jobs during his term.

Wow! He went through a recession and created 45 million jobs!!!

I remember the 1992 election well. That was my senior year. I turned 18 nine days after the election so I could not vote for Clinton as I had wanted to. I remember talking with Mr. Baer, my science teacher, and a Mormon, who did not like Clinton. I told him that I would have voted for Clinton if I could. In the primary, earlier that year, I really liked Paul Tsongas, of Massachusetts (and apparently so did Mitt Romney, as Mr. Romney voted for him in the Massachusetts primary—though a serial flopper, who knows if Romney did that because he actually agreed with Tsongas, or to satisfy Bay State voters for his eventual failed run as Senator in 1994).

Out of curiosity, where did you grow up, Connor?

Interesting, isn’t it, to look back on history and contemplate the “what ifs.”

I had no interest whatsoever in anything political back then. But I do remember catching the debate(s) between Bush, Clinton and Perot. My impression of the debates were that Bush was pretty bad, Clinton was better (more to my liking), but in the end I cast my vote for Perot, not liking either Bush or Clinton enough to vote for them.

I seem to remember that Perot had more Utah support than any other state in the union.

Since the days of Bush the Younger, I have often wondered what the USA would look like today had Perot actually won. A stupid thought, really, since the PTB would never have allowed Perot to win. In fact, I wonder aloud whether the PTB allowed Perot airtime in order to split the vote to allow Clinton to be their “chosen one.”

So funny, Connor. Good luck w/ the wedding!!!

As the header of my blog indicates, I’m from Poway, CA (a suburb of San Diego). We moved there from San Jose when I was seven.

Ah silly me to have forgotten to look up there. I grew up in Santa Clara. We lived pretty close to each other when you were seven.

And yes, I miss California too. A great deal. However, I’m lovin’ New York City.

’tis indeed a small world. I used to ride my bike past Kaiser Hospital all the time.

You thought about this kind of thing in 6th grade?! I’m not sure I even knew what was going on in politics of any kind at that age. And now I feel very old. That was the fourth presidential election in which I was qualified to vote.

But I do remember the first time I voted in a presidential election in 1980. I sent in an absentee ballot because I was overseas. The foreign coverage of the race made it look like Carter had it in the bag. The day after the election, a newsboy on the street called me over and asked if I was American (it was rather obvious). He got this huge smile on his face, pulled a paper out of his bag and asked, “Have you seen this yet?” He spread the front page out and showed me the biggest headline I’ve ever seen in any newspaper. Translated to English, all it said was, “PRESIDENT REAGAN!” He gave me the paper as a gift and walked away. I will never forget the great feeling I had the rest of that day. I still have that newspaper.

I remember you struggling to come up with an analogy when you wrote that — I loved the “brave as a bull.” I also remember going to the White House when Clinton was in office and all your younger brothers were standing there looking at pictures of Clinton and Tanner (the youngest - about 7 at the time) piped up and said out loud, “That man is GROSS!” (this was right after we had to explain to four young boys what the president had done that was getting everyone so upset.) The crowd behind us laughed and one man said, “Out of the mouth of babes.” Yes, welcome to growing up in a politically-aware family. . . . And now my boy is a fabulous writer and deep into political analysis. Go figure.

I think this only goes to show you how indoctrinated a child can become at the 6th grad age. I mean what 6th grader has an opinion on abortion unless it’s something the parents are beating into them?

And what is so wonderful about an indoctrinated world view, as opposed to exploring reality and discovering your own (even if that means coming back to that of your parents?)

I have worked in sociology all of my life, and I don’t mean to beseige you any pride in your personal politics, but this you have posted here is not something to be proud of, it is a travesty at how little we explore before forming our beliefs.

And without exploration and discovery, there can be no understanding, and without understanding, there is only stupidity.

I knew in the sixth grade (1986) that Reagan was a bad leader. My parents certainly didn’t tell me that (they were both working too much). I judged for myself from what I saw (plus that Genesis “Land of Confusion” video sure does put Mr. Reagan in a bad light).

Scriptures tell us we learn to judge things for ourselves at eight years of age. Why not at eleven or twelve, when we’re in the sixth grade?

Yeah, Anne, I gotta say you’d be surprised how many young kids there are that do what exploring is available to them at a young age. I think that’s commendable, actually. When I was 11 I remember an humorous morning at a friend’s house (I had spent the night) where we got up in the morning and I wanted to read the newspaper (I always read at least the Front Page, the Opinion section, and the comics lol) and he couldn’t figure out why. At that age I was reading all sorts of stuff and learning that I didn’t always come to the same conclusion as my parents – and also that not all sources were the same. One of my parents had strong political feelings but not much interest in actual facts or reasoning, the other parent was well-informed and even if you disagreed with them dangit if they didn’t leave you wanting to go learn more because man did they have good reason for what they believed, lol.