In the morning thread, Kay had a great idea for a conversational hare to set before the baying hounds of Balloon Juice: own your biggest political regret. It doesn’t have to be someone you voted for, though it certainly could be. It could also be someone you used to regard as a credible pundit who you now realize is a blithering idiot, etc.
As I confessed earlier, I was an idiot Nader voter in Florida in 2000, something I’m still kicking myself for 18 years later and will be ashamed of to my last breath. Also, the first time I read something authored by Camille Paglia, I thought she was interesting instead of immediately pegging her as “a crassly egocentric, raving twit,” as the great Molly Ivins did. In my defense, it wasn’t one of her faux-liberal political screeds; it was about literature. But still — stupid, stupid, stupid.
My husband and I dropped $50 on the Bernie Sanders campaign just as the 2016 primary was getting underway. That was mostly my husband’s doing, but I went along, thinking Sanders would drag Clinton to the left — and that she needed dragging. Still metaphorically punching myself in the face for that one (and receiving Our Revolution spam to boot).
How have you brought eternal shame to your family via a political blunder? Or, if you don’t feel like fessing up or haven’t ever made a dumb political choice, feel free to discuss whatever — open thread!
Jerry
I used to subscribe to Counterpunch. Ugh
Yutsano
I voted for Perot.
Twice.
dedc79
Used to take Chait seriously. The guy who is apparently now trying to undercut New York magazine employees who are fighting to unionize.
Hildebrand
I confess that I used to read Glenn Greenwald regularly. I am not sure if the shame will ever fade. Please don’t tell my kids.
Tom Hamill
When I was 4 years old I canvassed all the closet doors in the house for votes for Hubert Humphrey. And he lost. I wished I had canvassed more.
lgerard
I voted for Mitt Romney.
It was only for governor, but…
WestTexan70
Easy — I fell for John Edwards.
daveNYC
@Yutsano: No harm done then.
Used to take the Moustache of Understanding seriously.
swiftfox
I worked for Clean Water Action Project in the early 80s (bit of a scam) and voted for Nader under the cover of the MD electorate who would go for Gore.
trollhattan
Does voting Dr. Benjamin Spock for president count?
hedgehog the occasional commenter
I voted for John Anderson in 1980. And I actually read books by David Brooks and Glenn Greenwald.
Gravenstone
Grew up in the very conservative and casually (deeply) racist upper Midwest. As a result I viewed conservativism as ‘natural’ and cast my first ever vote for Reagan in 1984. Two years later, I’m staring at the smouldering wreckage of Iran Contra and asking myself what the fuck am I thinking to be supporting these people? Turned my back on Republicans and won’t look back. But it was still a bone stupid vote in the first place.
Tim C.
In my defense, I wasn’t yet able to vote being only 17, but for most of 1992, I was a Ross Perot fantatic. Mostly based on his suggestion of a 50 cents a gallon gas tax. I thought that was brave and it wasn’t till late summer I realized he was a solid gold lunatic.
Also In Oregon, I voted for a terrible “tough on crime” measure in 1994 with absurd mandatory minimums, again I plead youth and ignorance.
Hildebrand
I am still trying to figure out if I should feel ashamed for liking Daniel Patrick Moynihan when I was younger.
prufrock
I voted for Bill Young for far longer than I should have. In my defense, he did bring an extraordinary amount of infrastructure money back to Pinellas County, at least when earmarks were still a thing.
hueyplong
For perceived residency issues related to a grad school application, I did not vote in 1980 and therefore did not vote against Reagan.
Daoud bin Daoud
I too gave money to Bernie AND voted for him in the primary. Ugh. As for Camille Paglia, I actually bought her book Sexual Personae, and managed to slog my way through 2/3rds of it. Switching my party affiliation to the Greens 30+ years ago is high on my regret list. (I’m going to stop here and go buy a bottle of booze.)
schrodingers_cat
I had a good opinion of John McCain and bought into his glorification by the media in the R primary against Bush.
Scout211
@WestTexan70:
Ditto. And my mail-in vote was in the mail right before he withdrew. That right there is the downside of early voting. (Not that it will stop me in the future).
Mike in Pasadena
I voted for Reagan in 1980. (I was still in the military.)
bruins01
I used to read and think highly of Andrew Sullivan. Then he essentially called me a traitor and I will never, ever forgive him for it. Andrew Sullivan can go fuck himself.
trollhattan
re. Ross Perot: thank gawd for Dana Carvey reducing his schtick to a few catch phrases that showcased what a fraud he is. Phil Hartman’s (r.i.p.) Stockdale was if anything, even more devastating.
Tom DeVries
In 1968 I helped manage a primary and pre-convention campaign that challenged Lyndon Johnson for president. The issue was largely the war in Vietnam and of course we famously and spectacularly lost in Chicago. Afterward, the management talent of the losing campaigns — a couple fo dozen senior Kennedy and McCarthy organizers — met to discuss supporting the winner, Humphrey, in the general election against Nixon. We decided, generally, self-righteously, not to work for Humphrey. Nixon won by about one percent, the war continued, people died. I’m older now, and I regret our decision.
stardus614
I used to think that Maureen Dowd and Andrew Sullivan wrote things worth reading and even paying for, but then I also thought that Bernie Sanders’ and Susan Sarandon’s hearts were in the right place. I wonder who I’m dead wrong about now?
MFA
In my early 20s I voiced support for libertarianism. This was the early 80s and the Dems had largely (it seemed to me) folded before the onslaught of Reaganism. So that was my naive way of checking out, politically. But I never voted libertarian, so there’s that.
schrodingers_cat
@daveNYC: Not just MoU but the entire gang of thieves who wrote for the Grey Lady’s op-ed section. But I figured it out soon enough, that they were full of shit. Happened early on in Bush II’s reign.
the antibob
Voted for Edwards in the 2008 NH primary, thinking he would drag Hillary to the left. Voted for Sanders in the NH primary, thinking he would drag Hillary to the left… Now I just ask my 18 year old daughter who she thinks is the best candidate. She’s all- cut the crap Dad and just vote for Hillary. So much better instincts.
Tom65
I used to take Jane Hamsher seriously, in the early days of FDL.
schrodingers_cat
I used to read the Daily Dish, daily.
Al Z.
I supported Bob Kerrey in the 92 primary and I once shook hands with Al D’Amato at a wedding reception.
A Ghost To Most
No voting regrets. After 11 years out of regular contact with my deplorable family, I regret I didn’t do it sooner.
khead
Bush41, Dole and McCain from 1992-2000. Hey, I was young. But I voted for Gore and converted before Cole, at least.
A bit OT – Steph Curry. I love you man. You are my basketball hero. But the laws of physics that explain why you have the best shot on the planet are the same laws of physics that sent men to the moon. Also, I really enjoyed Capricorn One.
narya
Another one on the John Edwards train here . . .
Obvious Russian Troll
When I was in Wisconsin, I once voted for Scott Klug over Ada Deer based on their debate. She was not a good speaker, and came off as what younger Obvious Idiot Me thought was not ready for prime time. I don’t know what I was thinking.
In what I believe was the same election, I accidentally voted for one of the right-wing cranks for school board. Fortunately it wasn’t Nancy Mistele, because I remember to my great relief that whichever crank I voted for lost.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Well, I voted for Nixon in 6th grade but I think I can be forgiven for that one.
Voted for Ford over Carter.
Was a John Edwards supporter, then Hillary in the 2008 primaries. Afraid I came late to the game to Obama.
EBT
I was a very vocal social left fiscal right Libertarian when I first realized politics was a thing in sixth grade.
Kay
Balloon Juice is actually based on political regrets. John’s famous conversion.
In a way, it’s one long apology. And we’ve been getting it wrong ever since, in the spirit of our founder! :)
jonas
After 9/11 I was not nearly skeptical enough of the Bush administrations claims about Iraq and spent quite a lot of time drinking the pro-war koolaid offered on a lot of conservative blogs, including one run by this gung-ho army vet in West Virginia with a snarky attitude and a bunch of irreverent jackals in the comment thread. Whatever happened to that guy?
frosty
I had two opportunities to vote for Jimmy Carter and didn’t. In ‘76 I thought he might be competent enough to pull some kind of shenanigans like Nixon but I knew Ford wasn’t. In ‘80 I got seduced by 3rd party John Anderson.
Been a Yellow Dog Democrat ever since. Haven’t made a mistake with that yet.
skyweaver
I don’t post here much, usually only in response to pet stuff. But as I’ve been given the opportunity to unburden myself I will. I voted for Ross Perot.
Scuffletuffle
I once thought that Maureen Dowd had something useful to say…
Joey Maloney
My first vote ever went to John Anderson.
But my biggest regret is not a vote. Bear with me, there’s some background.
I was a canvasser for a Citizen Action group in the early ’80s, working on energy and environmental issues. Through persistence I got to be a field manager which means I ran a canvass crew. Aside from the mundane details of getting the crew organized every day, getting them out to the field, picking them up, explaining the First Amendment to the local constabulary and whatnot, field managers were also supposed to be some kind of cross between political educators and camp counselors. We knew the issues and so it was our job to foster what I guess you kids today call wokeness amongst new canvassers as we trained them, and to make sure everyone in the crew got along well enough to get the job done, that kind of thing.
So I was a field manager even though I was barely 20 and not very self-confident and when a couple of older guys on the crew started telling really vile sexist “jokes” in the presence of a high school girl who was new on staff, I didn’t have the wherewithal to shut that shit down. I didn’t even have the sense back then to realize how awful it must have made that young woman feel. The job had a lot of turnover but it retrospect I know exactly why she quit after a month. I’m nearly 40 years down the road from that incident but it still shames me. I was supposed to be a leader and I failed abjectly.
gene108
Registered to vote in high school. Couple of ladies came to our school library and signed up seniors to vote, who were eligible. Voted in 1992, 1994 and 1996. Then graduated from college and moved out of state. And didn’t vote in 1998, 2000, and 2002. Bush, Jr. pissed me off so much I registered to vote in 2004 and have been a regular voter ever since.
Part of this is I didn’t feel connected to the new state’s politics, figured my stay wouldn’t be for that long, and didn’t feel like there were huge differences between the parties. Republicans would cut taxes more than Democrats, but otherwise they seemed to have reached a policy consensus on how to run things.
Bush, Jr. showed me the error of my ways.
Droppy
I voted for John Anderson in 1980. I had bought into the Reagan-fueled claim that Carter was some sort of incompetent boob. I didn’t know what incompetent boobs really were yet – okay, already I’ve learned my lesson. I think it’s easy for naive, idealistic young people to think all it takes is Mr. Smith goes to Washington – one shining knight to bring down a corrupt system, etc. You gotta have an organization that mostly upholds the things you think are important; and you gotta keep out the organization with mad cow diseased brains. Every once in a while you get an Obama a guy who’s got a bit of Mr. Smith and who can play the game at the organizational level. That’s as good as it gets, and wouldn’t we all take that now!
The Dangerman
My first vote was for Reagan; I was obviously very young and foolish. I came from a fairly Republican Family. Mostly.
Kay
I palled around with libertarians in law school. I was flattered that they wanted me in their (boy) group.
Ask me anything about the commerce clause. If I don’t nod off mid-sentence I’ll try to answer it.
West of the Rockies
This may be TMI, but early on, had Sarah Palin asked, I woulda said yes.
I feel so dirty.
Squid696
First vote for President was for Reagan in 1980. That is a deep shame that is always near the surface. Liked Greenwald during the W era.
tobie
@swiftfox: I’ve given money over the years to Clean Water Action and they regularly knock on my door. Turns out that their canvassers are paid based in part on how many donations they bring in. Glad to hear from the horse’s mouth that they’re something of a scam.
I’ve made the mistake of voting based on how I think other people would vote. That’s always wrong. I was part of the Draft Clark movement in 2004 because I thought only a general would be able to defeat a then ‘war-time President.’ Same for Jesse Colvin in MD-01 when I should have voted for Allison Galbraith. Going into 2020 I have to remember: always vote for the person you think is the best candidate for office.
Ohio Mom
I can’t be sure but I most likely helped J. Kenneth Blackwell get started in politics by voting for him for Cincinnati City Council. Back then he identified as a Charterite*, a third (and generally considered liberal) party unique to Cincinnati. So I didn’t knowlingly vote for a future reactionary.
Blackwell, if you need reminding, rose to the Secretary of State, overseeing Ohio’s elections, including the very questionable one that gave Bush his second term. I don’t care how many times outfits like Mother Jones claim the vote was not stolen from us Buckeyes, I’ll never believe it.
* the Charter Committe dates back to the 1920s and the successful effort to clean up a very corrupt City Hall. They brought “good government” to Cincinnati in the form of the city manager structure, and have continued on as a third party within the city limits. They have usually aligned with the Democrats on city council, and they were a cute anachronism. I think they have outlived their usefulness at this point for a number of reasons, including the fact that they give cover to riff-raff. But I don’t live inside the city anymore so it isn’t my issue.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I read Marx as a teen and went through a staunch atheist phase after that. I am not particularly religious now but was Dawkins level obnoxious then. My poor mother.
RenoRick
I was in the bag for John Edwards. That is about it. I’m happy with the other political choices I have made.
MazeDancer
John Edwards.
Voted for him in the New Mexico primary.
Thought “Two Americas” was right on.
And the event sometime afterwards, where he conceded to Mr. Obama. And how they both looked so vibrant, chummy, and handsome, will remain in my memory forever.
khead
@tobie:
I’m still mad at Colvin over that last TV ad.
C Stars
Another Daily Dish survivor here. God, the guy is such a self-absorbed creep, I’m not sure what kept me going back. I even subscribed to his blog when he split with the Daily Beast and my subscription NEVER FUCKIN WORKED. So there was forty dollars gone to the cause of Sully’s pot and Xanax fund. I wrote in multiple times and they never fixed it, but I had already started to sour on him so I didn’t try that hard. And years ago I also used to sometimes write in on Dreher’s blog and try to reason for rights/respect for LGBTQ people because I misguidedly thought he might have a reasonable or compassionate bone in his body (but in fairness to myself, I believe his full transformation into a raving, paranoid, mean-as-a-snake misanthrope took place only in the last few years). I voted for McCain for senate once, but I don’t really regret that. I mean, now I realize that he was pretty much an asshole, but now having made that vote I feel like I have at least dabbled in trying to consider the other side.
Biggest recent regret is subscribing to the NYT after the 2016 election. I’d been a subscriber in the years before children and was just desperate for some idea of reason and objectivity in the aftermath of the election, but wow, was I mistaken about the NYT delivering that…
trollhattan
@Squid696:
Greenwald, like Sullivan was admirable back in the day for being Republican Lite yet against the torture regime. Both of their true characters have since leaked out (ewwww) in full view.
There should be zero gay Republicans given the party’s present state. But there ya go.
joel hanes
I used to read Howie Klein’s “Down With Tyranny” every day, and really swallowed the Dems-are-corrupt-corporatists framing until about 2015, when Howie’s terminal CDS became impossible to ignore, and the Wilmer fan-boi-ism overwhelmed everything else.
I’m probably not completely over it yet, as I still don’t care much for Steney Hoyer or Steve Israel.
Captain C
I would have voted for Edwards in ’08 had he lasted in the primaries. As it was, by the time New York voted, he was off the ballot, so I was spared from making that mistake.
A Ghost To Most
I have a friend regret. My best friend in high school was a radical Marxist, as were his professor parents. I became a liberal because of them. He went on to get his PhD in history, married a Hungarian, and has been teaching here and in Hungary. We recently got back in touch, and I was shocked at how complimentary he was of Viktor Orban. Never saw that coming.
snoey
Went for Fred Harris in the 76 Minnesota caucus in a completely cynical and successful attempt to go to the Minneapolis mayoral nominating convention.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
My youngest went full-on Lefty this year. He’s insufferable. But, adorable, and I’m confident he’ll calm down when he realizes he’s not the originator of this idea.
The libertarian thing was pure ego. It was all about me. “Look how open minded I am!” I drifted away by 2nd year. Saved by shallowness again!
TenguPhule
Back in 80s and 80s, I did not hate Reagan and Bush with the heat of a thousand angry suns.
oldster
I’ve done okay on voting: straight D since I was 18.
But I too was *far* too credulous about the run-up to the Iraq War. I believed Colin Powell, and instead I should have believed the incredulous French.
I also regret every minute that I wasted in the ’00s, reading Andrew Sullivan. What a vile piece of scum he has turned out to be — and indeed, in many respects always was.
Wapiti
I considered myself a Republican :spit: up through the Clinton/Dole contest. I would generally split my votes. I voted for Anderson or Perot as well.
Dole had some bit where he decried Hollywood for glorifying drug use, mentioning Trainspotting. Clearly neither he nor his staffers saw the movie in which everyone has their lives destroyed by heroin, and only the main character escapes. So I voted for Clinton, figuring Dole was stupid or evil. I voted for Gore, too, not liking Bush as Governor of Texas… then with the war of aggression against Iraq, and torture, I vowed never to vote for any Republican again.
efgoldman
In the early 80s I was a 3rd party idiot
Voted for whats her name against Mike Dukakiss and for John Anderson
Ohio Mom
I think this thread of confession is well-timed: the end of the year and the start of a new one is a good time for self-reflection.
Reading how we have grown, learned from experience, and evolved is hopeful reading.
Ocotillo
Voted for John Anderson in 1980 after working for Ted Kennedy in the Dem primaries.
For some stupid reason I voted for Tom Loeffler in I think 1986 which was the last time I voted for a Republican.
Pundit, that Bull Moose guy, I used to think he really had his sh*t together.
C Stars
Hey, since this is an open thread, may I turn the subject from politics to salad dressing?
I read on Chowhound or something that only an idiot buys bottled salad dressing from the store, but lately I’ve gotten sick of my decades-long standard (balsamic and olive oil; salt and pepper) and have tried making my own varieties, particularly seasoned vinaigrettes. They all suck. The store versions are better. I’m an idiot, maybe?
In college I had a French friend who seemed able to whip up this delectable vinaigrette in minutes, using nothing more than a little dijon mustard, lemon juice, oil, and some snappy wrist/whisk action. I’ve been trying to recreate her dressing ever since to no avail. Any advice? And if this is too off-base for a big-news Wednesday, maybe later in the week we could have a recipe blog?
trollhattan
@C Stars:
Followed Sully as he pranged around from one employer to the next. I’ll say it was the beagles. When he was under the same roof as McMegan I excused his linking to her columns as workmate solidarity, but after moving elsewhere the first time he extolled her yet again I quit reading him and have never looked back. You cannot simultaneously be pro-McMegan and a good person.
JR
I read that damned Tom Friedman book
tobie
@khead: Me, too. That was the last straw for me. By the way, you weren’t online one evening last week, but it turns out that there is another reader of BJ from our neck of the woods–Aberdeen,though he’s currently stationed in Pittsburgh. He’ll be back in Feb, I think, and liked the idea of mid-Atlantic meetup for those of us who live in nowheresville between Belair and Wilmington.
Yarrow
On a friend’s recommendation I purchased “Bobos in Paradise.” Read it. Liked it. Shame! Shame! Shame! I mean, I gave cash money to that idiot David Brooks. So much shame.
I wonder if I still have it and if I picked it up now what I’d think of it.
Betsy
John Edwards.
He did have a great focus on making work pay — identified the problem and defined it meaningfully and proposed rationally based policies, especially concerning those in the lower half of the income scale. But there was that whole slick southern boy egomania. And I had early warning of it from a campus group I was part of, way back when Edwards was just getting his start in a House primary.
Everyone knew, too, that Elizabeth Edwards was the real deal — smarter, savvier, better connected than her husband in the circles of Those Who Do the Actual Work.
TenguPhule
@Yutsano:
That shouldn’t be a regret. At least you didn’t vote for Bush!
Captain C
@MFA: I actually was registered as a Libertarian, in AZ, for some time in the late ’90s, early ’00s. Granted, it was strategic (the number of registrees for automatic ballot placement in AZ is quite low), and often my only choices on the ballot were Libertarian and Republican; without their automatic placement, we would have been stuck with only thoroughly horrible Republicans (unless I wanted to write someone in). Still, it’s kind of embarrassing.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Oh dear. You’re certainly headed to Hell for that one.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: There was some pooja for my grandfather’s 75th birthday and I gave all assembled a lecture, including the priest ( who was moonlighting as a priest and was a principal of one of Mumbai’s famous schools) about the silliness of religious practices. My grandmother and Mr. Joshi, the priest smiled indulgently, while my mother was cringing but said nothing. I out grew this phase by the time I was about 15. When I realized what the Soviets had actually done under the guise of communism.
ETA: I have argued Hindu scriptures and practices with our family priest, who was always ready for a good debate and answered all my questions. He was a good guy, he married both my parents and grand parents. Knowledgeable and smart. I didn’t always agree with him but I had a lot of respect for him even then.
A Ghost To Most
@TenguPhule:
I seethed all through Raygun.
By 41, I was numb.
Cohen got 36 months.
TenguPhule
@JR:
Then you have already been punished enough.
TenguPhule
@C Stars:
Sure why not, they both involve trying to combine oil and water.
A Ghost To Most
@Yarrow:
We have a leader in the stretch.
azelie
I was a few months too young to vote in the 1988 election, but I volunteered at the RNC in New Orleans that year. I went with friends several times before the convention to make signs and whatnot and then attended the convention. I grew up in a conservative family and was interested in politics so I thought it would be a good experience to see what went on at conventions. But I think the experience is part of what made me realize that the party did not have my interests at heart. That and the fact that the Republican candidate for Senate in my first election was a known Klansman got me voting for Democrats and eventually becoming pretty liberal.
trollhattan
@C Stars:
Tarragon? I’m big on tarragon in vinaigrette. I also loathe too-tart dressings and sometimes the vinegar needs a pinch of sugar to knock it back if it’s too tart-forward. Also, there’s a lot of faux olive oil so make sure to find the best quality possible. We’re lucky to have local growers in our area.
Have never recreated it but a favorite chef made amazing citrusette dressing based on orange juice.
Kirk Spencer
Reagan once (I was in the army and he was _very_ popular there). Perot once (absentee ballot mailed the day before the black helicopter meltdown). And there was a councilman in Limon Colorado who successfully convinced me he was my preferred candidate. Me and enough others that he had access to the power he then abused. That one embarrasses me the most because he did not fool my wife and she wasn’t shy telling me how bad he was. In my defense it was early in our marriage and I was still learning to hear what women were saying.
West of the Rockies
@trollhattan:
I’d forgotten about dear, old Sully. Does anyone read him now?
TenguPhule
@C Stars:
No, the stores are selling stuff made by the professionals. You and millions of others are rank novices.
tobie
@A Ghost To Most: 3 years ain’t bad. He got lucky. I gather he was covering for his Brighton Beach family and friends in the NY case, which is what pissed off the SDNY.
Mnemosyne
Another Nader 2000 voter here. Ugh. It was a good lesson in the folly of casting a “protest vote” even in a safely blue state like California.
I also voted for some propositions that turned out to be so terrible that the CA courts had to modify them when the results became clear. “Three strikes” is the one that really stands out in my mind. We were told that rapists with multiple offenses would be put away for life, and instead homeless guys who stole batteries from the local drugstore were getting life sentences. That’s why I now take the Kevin Drum route of voting “no” on propositions unless I see several different analyses saying that voting “yes” is okay.
Jeffro
I regret sending the John Edwards campaign some dough during the primaries…by the time the actual voting rolled around, I genuinely don’t remember if I voted for him or Obama, though, so there’s that.
Other than that, I can’t think of a vote, donation, or other political activity that I’ve regretted. In fact, door-knocking and op-ed writing for the local paper have been quite good for the soul at time. =)
TenguPhule
@A Ghost To Most:
I hope he eats shit on shingles three times a week.
trollhattan
@A Ghost To Most:
36 months? Not enough but hopefully the entitled prick “enjoys” each and every one.
CCL
Thought Edwards was too “pretty” – but loved Elizabeth.
In high school thought Atlas Shrugged was a good book. Does that count? My mother was horrified.
Betsy
@tobie: You mentioned the fallacy of voting based on how you think other people will vote. Ah yes. I’ve been stupid that way. Back during the 2007 primaries, I was hesitant to vote for Obama. I thought he was great but would say to my friends, “if only he didn’t have … that *name*.”
Citizen Alan
I voted for Nader in 2000 because I simply could not bring my self to vote for Joe Lieberman. Granted, it was in Mississippi, so my vote was basically meaningless anyway. But since then, I’ve come around to the idea that the true danger of third parties lies in their ability to suppress the vote. After all, if you successfully persuade X number of people to vote Green because “all Republicrats are the same,” then you’ve probably persuaded an order of magnitude more people that “all Republicrats are the same so I might as well not bother voting at all.
A Ghost To Most
@azelie: @tobie: That was my over/under line, solely based on TV lawyers.
Searcher
While I personally favored Clinton, I did not defend her vocally, in public or private, against Republican smears.
C Stars
@trollhattan: Yeah, I think a lot of us had a Dish Period. Times were different then. Although, you’re so true, McMegan has always just been awful and ridiculous, and the fact that he linked to her as though she were in any way reasonable (and Dreher, and others) should have been a clue about the guy’s character. That and his bizarre obsession with the Palin family.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Polyamory at its finest! //jk
Joey Maloney
@tobie:
I have to disagree. The Citizen Action groups were the first workable model for a self-sustaining progressive action group. You’re damn right canvassers got a percentage of what they raised; that’s how we managed to train and retain quality staff and get a small-donor funding stream that was reliable enough to have a real budget, hire organizers to work at the community level and lobbyists to work the state house.
When I was doing it (again, early 1980s) your weekly quota was $400. You got 40% of everything you raised up to quota, and then 50% after that. Do the math – if you just made quota gross pay was the princely sum of $160/week which was shit pay for even back then.
If anything the problem was the economics didn’t allow us to pay canvassers more. It was grueling work, long hours, difficult conditions, and if you missed quota 2 weeks in a row you were fired. We lost way too many talented people to simple burnout and because there was nowhere for them to go in the organization to continue contributing.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
My voting history starts with Bill Clinton in 92. I moved out and didn’t get my address changed for the 96 election, but I would have voted for WJC again. After that it was Gore in 00, Kerry in 04, Obama in 08 and 12 and HRC in 16. I voted for each one in the primaries too. So no regrets at the Presidential level.
Having said that, I was Nader friendly in 00 and exposed some friends to him – even took them to see him at the UIC Pavillion – though the friends were more interested in Eddie Vedder and some of the other musical guests.
But the one candidate that I was quite high on that turned out to be a shit person was John Edwards. I thought his Two Americas campaign was very good and before it’s time. Trump won on a The Dark Side Sith version for Dummies of the Two Americas theme.
That’s about it. I describe myself as a 45 degree Democrat. I’m not a 0 degree centrist or a 90 degree liberal purist. I’m right in the middle of the Democratic Party spectrum and will always vote for the party nominee because I’m not a fvcking “too pure for thou, but my feels” jackass.
Jeffro
.
DivF
I voted for Barry Commoner for President in 1980. Totally pointless.
JAFD
Voted for Schweiker for Pa Senate in ’74. Also for Sam Katz for Philly mayor in ’99, but don’t regret that.
Am back home, still getting better, waiting for home i’net too be reconnectd
Aleta
Cohen get 3; meanwhile
Her recent appeal was denied.
TenguPhule
@Betsy:
You sound like my mother did. She thought Hillary would win the primary too.
JohnPM
@bruins01: I also used to read Andrew Sullivan regularly, and I bought his book “The Conservative Soul,” which I have never been able to finish. On the other hand, his page did lead me to Balloon Juice, so it wasn’t a complete waste.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: @trollhattan: I’m sure he’ll get time off for good behavior. More importantly, it’s a message to Trumpov: look what you’ve got waiting for you post-WH, jerk. Times ten.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Folks, especially living elsewhere, don’t know California was predictably reactionary for decades. Two terms of Jerry 1.0 were followed by a combined four of the Deuk and Wilson and then after a shockingly short Gray Davis stint, 1.5 terms of Arnold. Only during the Jerry 2.0 era have we kicked the everloving crap out of the California Republican Party.
Wag
My biggest political regret is my first presidential vote in 1980. I voted for Barry Commoner instead of Jimmy Carter. It didn’t make any difference, I was voting in Colorado, and Reagan took the state handily, but I missed an opportunity to vote for an American hero.
C Stars
@Betsy: Same. As in, I’m pretty sure those same words actually came out of my mouth. *cringe*!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T: Three years for Cohen.
TenguPhule
@JohnPM:
Truly damned.
Cermet
I yelled at a very attractive young lady who tried to recruit me for the amerikan communist party (I was in college at the time.) While they are fools and she was wrong, it wasn’t polite of me to do that. At least my words were civil. That is it.
lgerard
@C Stars:
I use onion juice (onion whacked in a food processor or blender, then squeezed through cheesecloth), Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Add oil in a stream while blending with a hand mixer. It is simple and any herb can be added if you wish.
Anything acidic can be substituted for the mustard, I sometimes use a bit of sesame oil, ginger juice and orange juice.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: He officiated their weddings as the priest.
tobie
@Joey Maloney: See swiftfox’s comment #9. My beef with Clean Water Action is that, while they’ve done some good advocacy for protecting the Chesapeake Bay, they’ve neglected the issue of urban infrastructure. The group is based in Baltimore–they could push for better water treatment facilities in a city that’s starved by the current governor. You’re right, though, that canvassers should be paid. I’m just not sure that a commission structure is the way to go but I can see that there might be problems with an hourly wage approach.
cope
I voted for Nader in 2000 here in Florida (shudder…twitch…flop sweat in guilt) and read “The Fountainhead” in high school and told all my friends how great it was (maybe that’s why I’m not in touch with any of them anymore).
ProfDamatu
When I was in college, I subscribed to US News & World Report (it was required for my intro communications class first semester – along with two daily newspapers – and I kept up the subscription the next several years). I’d read John Leo’s weekly columns…and more or less agree with them. Which is odd considering my parents are Democrats (though I don’t think they voted for a Dem presidential candidate during my childhood – not until Clinton). Of course my grandparents who helped raise me were Republicans of the sort that doesn’t exist anymore…
It’s actually interesting tracking how my views changed in college. I went from generally agreeing with Leo freshman year, to never agreeing with him senior year (to skipping his column because it pissed me off so much by the time I started grad school).
I will note that I’ve never voted R for president (I missed the 1992 election by a year, and honestly would probably have gone Perot – hey, I was 17!). I did once vote in the Republican primary for President in Texas, because I haaated W and wanted to cast a vote against him that might actually be meaningful.
TenguPhule
@Aleta:
I think Texas or Florida would like to say hi there.
Mnemosyne
@A Ghost To Most:
One of my friends from high school recently tracked me down. I made it clear early on that I was just as liberal as ever and she said, “Oh, thank God. Me too.” Crisis averted!
jc
I once thought John Edwards was going to be president. And boy oh boy, Howard Dean’s “scream” sure makes the media look ridiculous these days. And I wish there was someone running for public office with the policies of Bernie Sanders who was 30 years younger.
Betty Cracker
I also regret my absolute confidence that Clinton would trounce Trump in 2016. Not that I would have done anything differently had I been less confident — I donated, volunteered, etc. But still, I felt so deceived by America that night, when clearly I had been fooling myself all along. It’s a function of privilege, to believe your country is incapable of making such a reckless and idiotic choice. Of course it was capable of that, and I should have known that! I’m too old to have been so naive. My 18-year-old understood the danger all along, and I was blind to it.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat: I know, but I couldn’t resist upon seeing the phrasing.
Kay
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
I was canvassing once and I had a nice lady stop me and tell me “I just vote for the Democrat- it’s easier and I generally agree with them”
It makes a lot of sense for people like her- Party as proxy for a set of ideas- she’s just not that obsessive, which is fine. She’s allowed to have…other interests.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Tom65:
The Jane Hamsters of the Left are on a lot of folks’ naughty list
schrodingers_cat
@C Stars: Use a blender, my whisk action is not as good as that of the professional chefs.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: A three year sentence equates to how much time actually spent behind bars? I am curious about that. Wondering where he will spend it, too.
Cohen could have gotten a lot worse. Three years is not that long; he’ll be out when he’s 56 or so …
Josie
I liked John Edwards at first. Luckily, my super dialed in son convinced me to take a good look at Obama, and I wound up voting for him and caucusing for him (Texas had a primary and a caucus.). I was never sorry.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
I had confidence right up until Comey fucked us all with his big fucking mouth.
After that, nothing but bad dreams till the 7th.
And after that, the nightmares began.
C Stars
@Mnemosyne:
Very sound advice, especially in CA. And this latest ballot was a doozy, with a lot of misleading advertising that I believe tricked into people voting against their intentions, particularly with the dialysis center regulation.
CaseyL
I supported Ted Kennedy in 1980, and voted for John Anderson. I have never forgiven myself for that, nor forgotten the lesson it taught.
DavidC
Wrote in Gene McCarthy in 1976 for my first presidential vote because both candidates were pretty much the same. *sigh*
Used to take George Will seriously.
A Ghost To Most
,@Betsy:
I was hooked on Obama after the 2004 DNC speech.
It’s hard to grok having such a middling response.
Ian G.
Voted for Rick Lazio in 2000 NY Senate because I was young and naive and bought the Clinton smear hype. I wonder how many Dems never realized they were being conned and did like I did in the 2016 election?
As for Hillary, I voted for her in the primary and general election in 2016, but voted for Obama in the 2008 primary.
Andrey Stroilov
I donated to Ron Paul back in 2008.
Barbara
Wow.
I used to read Glenn Greenwald, but before he really went off the rails. I still don’t really understand what happened. I even had a nice exchange with him about the double standard being applied to Sonia Sotomayor when she was elevated to the Supreme Court.
I used to read Andrew Sullivan and then, at some point, it really hit me how misogynistic and racist he is and I haven’t been able to read him since. He loved Obama, at least for a while. That was his main draw from my perspective.
I voted for John McCain in Virginia’s open primary in 2000, mostly because I really thought Bush was a clown, and Gore had no real opposition. Still, regret it.
I regret a vote I had in a local election. We had a chance to elect one of the first gay county board members anywhere, and it was one of those sour, anxious cycles where people expressed caution over tax and bond issues by voting for his opponent. Who turned out to be a complete loser. Next time, I did not make that mistake.
ETA: That vote for McCain was my one and only vote for a Republican, ever, in any election. My parents were even more liberal than I am, although my husband finds that to be a phenomenon bordering on the impossible.
TenguPhule
So did I miss something or did Trump today just threaten violence from his supporters if he is removed from office?
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne:
That’s funny!
There’s a whole core group from my HS graduation class who were apolitical back then but now share stuff on an almost daily basis on FB. Whoo boy, SOME of us sure have gotten ‘radicalized’ in a good way. =)
It’s great.
catclub
@stardus614:
This is the most useful question of all. Those folks back then were so wrong about the things they thought were common knowledge.
But I am probably wrong about some common knowledge today.
Barbara
@A Ghost To Most: My hubbie was hooked after that speech as well.
catclub
@TenguPhule: That is not new. He threatened violence if he did not get the nomination.
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
HIV positive Gay British Conservative who believes in FYIGM.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: He was saying that “people will revolt”. He’s not threatening violence but he’s definitely testing the waters, like he always does.
I wonder what the GOP will say when he starts telling his supporters to show up at Dem congressmen’s offices and “show them how you feel”. Actually I don’t wonder – they won’t say a thing.
WereBear
Likewise guilty. I read Bobos in Paradise until the halfway mark and realized David Brooks was absolutely beating his few ideas to death with a tenderizing mallet.
And I ordered Glenn Greenwald’s “book” and he sent me a pamphlet. Knew he was a con artist then, and saved me so much time.
West of the Rockies
@Cermet:
And then there was the time you voted for W…
I kid, I kid!
Betty Cracker
I was also a SullyDish reader back in the day. Shortly after Obama was elected, Sully front-paged a dumb anti-Palin cartoon I did, and I was thrilled to pieces!
TenguPhule
@catclub:
He didn’t have the official platform of the Federal Government to use as a megaphone back then.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Yeah, but Gore won California handily, which is why my vote for Nader is embarrassing.
And I voted FOR Gray Davis and against him being recalled, because that whole thing was fucking bullshit designed to protect Enron from having to pay fines to CA. Between that and Bush II, that’s when I switched from “decline to state” to Democrat.
Johnnybuck64
Voted for Zell Miller twice.
Aleta
@C Stars: Is it possible she put a pressed garlic clove into it too? And salt.
slag
When I was in college I was dumb enough to think I didn’t have enough policy savoir-faire to vote well so I didn’t vote at all. If only I had someone to teach me what Obama explained in his GOTV video this year: a lot of our elected officials are uninformed. Wisdom of crowds, etc.
Speaking of Perot, I consider one of my great political successes to be convincing my otherwise Bush-voting mother to instead vote for that squirrelly dude before I was even old enough to vote. I watched his presentation on the teevee and made the case, which she cited when explaining to me why she voted as she did.
TenguPhule
@Johnnybuck64:
Folks I think we have a winner.
Barbara
@TenguPhule: No, what happened to Greenwald. I understand Sullivan’s schtick.
cope
@C Stars: Dill is good in a vinaigrette. Try different vinegars (I’m stuck on red wine and balsamic vinegars) and sometimes a crumble of blue cheese over the dressed salad. Don’t forget a smidgen of salt and/or sugar, the universal flavor enhancers.
Edit: as mentioned above, some smashed fresh garlic as well.
Joey Maloney
@tobie: You’re not wrong there. I’ve been out of it for decades, but the orgs were ever only as good as the program staff and often there just weren’t enough for either sufficient diversity of opinion or just warm bodies to cover all the issues we wished we could.
I’ll say this though, the twice-yearly canvasser conferences were pretty amazing. Imagine a venue where it’s easier for a nerd to get laid than at a science fiction convention.
WereBear
@Tom DeVries: Thank you for such a clear directive on the dangers of PURITY.
I am continually explaining to third party fanatics that our government is not designed for anything but two parties, which is why they really don’t do much to move the needle.
ProfDamatu
@Barbara: I did the same thing in 2000, in Texas. I don’t recall for certain, but I’m pretty sure I voted for McCain in that primary too. Bush was just so insufferable as governor of Texas, I wanted to vote against him meaningfully if I could (knowing that TX would go solidly red in the general, so my vote for Gore would be meaningless).
Barbara
For anyone who wants to follow the Brexit catastrophe, Guardian has a live feed of the impending no confidence vote (or whatever it is called).
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2018/dec/12/tory-mps-trigger-vote-of-no-confidence-in-may-amid-brexit-uncertainty-politics-live
Results should be in around 3:00 EST.
PJ
@A Ghost To Most: Scratch a Marxist, uncover an authoritarian, not a big surprise. Some of the biggest neo-cons were apparently Trotskyists or Stalinists (David Horowitz?) in their younger days.
Tom_23
I used to read Jonathon Turley regularly. Can’t believe that fraud is still on the blog roll. I like that Doug J brings him up on twitter on occasion for easy satire.
Also will second Glenn Greenwald. Although, I enjoy his evil twin Glem.
rikyrah
Used to be a reader of Sullivan.
And, I used to like Camille P.
And, I used to take Tavis Smiley and Cornel West seriously.
Suburban Mom
@C Stars: Almost any bottled dressing will have more salt and sweetener than anything homemade. If you like the bottled stuff you could try adding a very small bit of sugar or honey to your own recipe and see if that helps. You can also try a little salt. A small amount of minced shallot and either fresh or dried herbs (whatever you enjoy, be it oregano, parsley, thyme, tarragon) are good flavor enhancers too. Good luck!
SC54HI
I voted for Anderson instead of Carter. I used to read Sullivan & Dreher in the mistaken belief that I could learn something from a “different” viewpoint. I have learned that different is not the same as rabid & vile.
To my credit: my first ever vote for a President was for McGovern. I was one of two in my freshman dorm section of about 12 young women; the rest voted for Nixon. Later, the two of us did some world-class gloating — I also remember laughing out loud at the “I am not a crook” line as one of a large group watching that speech as it was telecast live. Others were actually crying but most were silent.
catclub
@Barbara: I still think think she comes through it successfully. Nobody wants her job.
The Moar You Know
Easy. Not taking local/city/county elections seriously.
Marry a teacher and that changes quickly.
Realize your own party has been shooting the tires out from under its own car since the early 2000s and that’s why Trump is president, it changes even more quickly. I’ve become a bit of an evangelist for local elections since. I’d rather not vote in a presidential contest than not vote for school board (I vote for both, obviously).
I have never voted for a Republican or a third party and therefore have never regretted a vote.
C Stars
@trollhattan: @TenguPhule: @lgerard: @schrodingers_cat:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve copied and pasted your comments to a Google document (except TenguPule’s, because, yeah…to weep is to make less the depth of grief etc etc).
I’m determined now to come up with something that works. And yeah, tarragon’s yummy and under appreciated. I will try that.
ETA: @Aleta: @cope: @Suburban Mom:
Such good suggestions, all. This is exactly the feedback I needed to move forward with this important project.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Ugh. I read a little about the case and she did not help herself by stealing the guy’s cash and car and going to Wal-Mart, which seems to have convinced the courts in TN that she’s just another hooker who robbed her john even though SHE WAS ONLY 16 AND LOOKED WAY YOUNGER.
The really infuriating thing is that TN appears to have deliberately designed their law to circumvent the Supreme Court — they’re claiming that because she was sentenced to 51 years and not to “life without parole,” the SC’s decision that kids under 18 can’t be given life sentences doesn’t apply. Fuckers.
Downpuppy
All the regrets are what I didn’t do. Missed voting a few times when young. Didn’t join groups. The only “political” event I went to in college was a Spartacus Youth League meeting. Even at 19, it was obvious that everyone there was a twit or a cop.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
You cannot just say that and not put it up. Link, please. (I think Sully left The Dish up, although who knows?)
Johnnybuck64
Read Taylor Marsh for a minute.
Mathguy
Was libertarian-curious in the 1980s, and thought Hitchens, Sully and Greenwald weren’t bad. Ugh.
Karen
@WestTexan70: Me too. >_<
Hillary in 2008.
Turner Hedenkoff
A few years ago in Georgia, I voted for a Republican primary candidate for governor, and encouraged others to do the same, because it looked like the guy was going to more beatable than the GOP frontrunner. He had just quit Congress one step ahead of the ethics committee and appeared to be in the sights of a state ethics probe, too. He won, trounced the Democrat in November got re-elected four years later.
Mitigating circumstances: The front-runner was soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Karen Handel. And the guy who beat her, Nathan Deal, has largely turned out to be a bog-standard corporate Republican. He’s even had a somewhat progressive streak on justice issues and vetoed a dumb-ass “religious liberty” bill a couple of years ago.
C Stars
Salad Dressing Elves: I have a comment in moderation thanking you all. I’m taking down your advice in a google doc.
Johnnybuck
@TenguPhule: it was a lesser of teo evils deal.
The Moar You Know
@Tom_23: Two people who I respected and read constantly pre-Obama were Jon Turley and Pat Lang. Don’t blame yourself. That fucking guy lost his goddamn marbles when Obama got elected and went off the deep end. Lang even more so. That ain’t on us.
Turley absolutely should not be on the blog roll here, though. I think raven and I got Lang tossed last time people were asked for input on the blogroll. Lang’s decline was quick and agonizing to watch. He was not a stupid man. He became one very quickly.
Hob
Nader 2000, New York. I didn’t really do anything for the Greens (other than volunteering as a poll monitor, which was fine) but I did flirt with writing some super stupid shit on the Internet— like, I didn’t really bother advocating for the stuff Nader said that made perfect sense, instead it was stuff I could barely even convince myself of, like the idea that protecting Roe v. Wade didn’t really matter because “the issue would just go back to the states” (cringe). Fortunately almost no one read my blog, except for one friend who was much more patient with me than I deserved.
Also, I voted for Jerry Brown for President in 1992 and managed to convince myself that a flat tax might be a good idea.
psycholinguist
I bragged about reading Ann Rand and thought I was deep. Then I turned 13.
MarySNJ
Confession is good for the soul. I voted for John Anderson in 1980; my first ever general election vote. I supported and sent money to John Edwards. He dropped out the next week.
dnfree
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: I also voted for John Anderson in 1980. I live in Illinois so it didn’t make a difference, but still, Reagan won. Does anyone remember what Reagan did to programs that served immigrants? Where we lived at the time, there was a community of Hmong people from Vietnam who had helped the US during the Vietnam War. Our local junior college had a program to help teach them English and find jobs. Reagan shut that down along with numerous other social welfare programs. Couldn’t have them buying Cadillacs, or something like that.
Jeffro
OT but I just took the WaPo’s article about Cohen’s sentence, changed “Donald Trump” to “Hillary Clinton” and sent it to my RWNJ dad and bro, asking them if they’d be calling for a deeper investigation (or flat-out impeachment, or drawing and quartering) into Clinton given everything her lawyer just went to prison for. Will let y’all know what they have to say…=)
Jonny Scrum-half
Hell, I was a Republican until the Iraq War in 2003. As an unnamed character played in Monty Python and the Holy Grail played by John Cleese said, “I got better.”
kindness
I gave money to Andrew Sullivan for his drivel for far far too long.
I don’t know that I’ll ever overcome that karma.
Johannes
@C Stars: OMG, I’m guilty of all these myself! Sullivan reader, subscriber, NYT subscriber (added the WaPo in 2016, we still have the Times because the Boss likes the puzzles), and tried to reason with Dreher. I literally read your post as my own confession of error.
blackcatsrule
@C Stars: You’re already been making a basic vinaigrette; may I ask what don’t you like about the new versions you’ve tried? If you’re using dijon mustard I would suggest a white wine vinegar or lemon juice like your friend, instead of balsamic. If you’re using dried herbs/spices, make the vinaigrette a few hours before you need it to let the flavors meld.
satby
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: I share your shame in voting for Anderson, who was a good guy, and learned never to vote third party then.
I read Greenwald back when he was ravaging Bush the lessor, but lost interest in him pretty quickly at least.
My almost mistake would have been voting for Edwards in the primary based on his Two Americas platform, but he was already eliminated by that time.
Hob
@tobie: I spent about a week canvassing for NYPIRG in college and was terrible at it. What I thought seemed hinky was not so much that canvassers were paid on commission, but that the org so strenuously denied that that’s how it worked when someone brought it up. They were like, no, the way it works is that if you bring in more than a certain amount, then you’re paid an amount that is proportional to what you bring in… whereas if you bring in less than that amount, then you’re fired… but it’s not a commission!
I did get a good story out of it, though. At one point they dropped us off for half a day in a Long Island suburb. Half of it looked incredibly depressed and hopeless, the other half was tony with big houses. I wandered over to the tony part, and on the way I saw this big box turtle in the middle of the street. Even though there was no traffic anywhere, I somehow decided that the turtle was in danger so I picked it up to put it in the grass—and it immediately bit the hell out of my hand. So I ended up ringing the doorbell of some McMansion with my clipboard in one hand, and the other one dripping blood, and asking “Hi, do you have a moment to hear about blah blah blah and do you have a bandaid?” Got a bandaid but not a pledge.
dnfree
@Tom DeVries: Regarding Humphrey in 1968, I worked at the time with a genuine bona-fide hippie. I was surprised when he told me he was going to vote for Humphrey. He told me it was because of potential Supreme Court nominations–the first time I had ever heard that rationale.
WereBear
Ha! Me and the other weird kid in sixth grade voted for Humphrey! I guess we had the last laugh.
Mohagan
@WestTexan70: Sigh. Me too. Now I look at all pretty boys with suspicion, even if not deserved (currently it’s Eric Swalwell, who gets lots of time on MSNBC). Otherwise, I’ve been a very pragmatic (i.e. “Yellow Dog” as they were known in the South) Democrat all my life. To start, I supported Humphrey in 1968 while in HS (!), since I couldn’t believe people were falling for the “new Nixon”. The first vote I ever cast was for McGovern in the CA primary in 1972 (back when you had to be 21 to vote).
C Stars
@Johannes: Solidarity, my friend. I’m glad we find ourselves at BJ at this juncture in time.
divF
@blackcatsrule: My go-to version of the lemon juice dressing is 3 parts olive oil, one part lemon juice, salt, white pepper, and thyme.
ETA: If I’m feeling really flush, I turn this into roquefort dressing by partially emulsifying (leave some lumps, but small) some roquefort cheese into it.
Hungry Joe
Another Edwards-ian primary voter here. Once the truth came out the sleaze seemed obvious, but I didn’t pick up on it till then.
blackcatsrule
@divF: Yep, that is classic, I sometimes change it up by adding some dijon and using tarragon instead of thyme.
C Stars
@blackcatsrule: Good question. I use good olive oil, I believe. It’s produced locally here in CA and tastes nice in other applications. But there’s been a kind of bitter, greasy, overwhelmingly olive oil taste in some of my experiments. To the point that I’ve even tried using non-olive cooking oil to see if that’s any better. And the vinegar is also sort of tart and “unripe” tasting. I think the suggestion of adding sugar is probably a good one. I’ve tried multiple recipes but somehow the vinegar/oil ratio always seems off. In terms of herb seasonings, I’m pretty happy with that. I like oregano a lot and usually add some crushed garlic. Looking forward to trying tarragon with a dijon vinaigrette.
Bevster
My Congressional representative is a little Italian gal named Nancy. She’s married to a real estate developer named Ron Pelosi, who had the foresight to buy up half of Marin County in the 70s. When she first ran for office back in the 80s, I volunteered for her opponent, a very progressive gay guy named Harry Britt, because I said to myself, Self, however will this rich bitch represent the likes of me in DC? She’ll be eaten alive. Turns out I was mistaken. (For the record, finally cast my first vote for her in 2010.)
steppy
Bless me, Jackals, for I have sinned…
My first vote for John Anderson was an act of pure political naivete. Glad to see I wasn’t alone around here.
I spent way too much time at FireDogLake during the original FitzMas season. That one seems to tick a lot of people’s boxes also.
My first political registration was Republican. The local Republican committee gave me the form at some fair and I thought I would do them a solid. My “My God, what have I done?” moment came quickly and my new Democratic paperwork went to the county pretty quickly.
Debo
When I was in my 20s, I read Atlas Shrugged and thought it was a great book. Also, I donated early on to John Edwards’ presidential campaign.
EriktheRed
I turned 18 in 1984.
Because I was still a young and naïve lad who was raised by Republicans, I pulled the lever for Reagan’s 2nd term.
Need I say more?
bookdragon
@Gravenstone: That is pretty much mine too. Including growing up in the Midwest, though my parents at least weren’t even casually racist. They’d just grown up in a big city at a time when the political machine there was Democratic, so therefore Dems being corrupt and bad was an article of faith. (Mom has come around on that and now considers GOP thoroughly corrupt. Dad is now firmly in ‘a pox on your houses’ wrt both).
Death Panel Truck
@Joey Maloney: I briefly worked as a canvasser for Citizen Action in Seattle in 1995. I was trained by a guy named Alex, whose silver tongue could convince an elderly lady to part with her very last dime. I was never good at it, and the job was frustrating because so many people, primarily in Burien and West Seattle, were conservatives who weren’t terribly receptive to our message. One lady told me, “We’re Republicans, and we own guns,” which was her way of telling me to get the fuck off her porch. The final straw for me was on a Friday afternoon, when the boss told us to work extra hard, “so we can make payroll.” The money we collected was to fight Newt Gingrich’s attempts to cut Medicare, but apparently we’d done such a piss-poor job of it that we weren’t able to bring in enough to pay ourselves. I quit that night, as did a number of people.
We were in Skyway one evening, and a member of our crew canvassed Al Hendrix’ house. She said the walls were covered in Jimi memorabilia. God, how I wished I’d been with her that night!
Amir Khalid
I voted for a PAS (Islamist party) candidate once, in the 2008 general election. I had and have a low opinion of Islamists; but back then PAS was in the opposition coalition and thus among the good guys. Pas eventually fell out with their secular and sectarian coalition partners. This 2018 general election, these fucking two-faced holy rollers allied with Najib’s Barisan Nasional, and got wiped out everywhere outside their home base of Kelantan state. I freute mich sehr at their Schade.
Peale
I thought Anthony Weiner and Rahm Emmanuel were destined for greater things.
ETA: and I also thought Michelle Rhee was “onto something” that would solve the problems at our “failing” schools.
Central Planning
I voted Reagan in my 5th grade straw poll. That shame will die with me.
MoxieM
I was moving back from North Carolina to MA right at the time of the elections. I thought it mattered more to vote for former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt (running against the odious Jesse Helms), than to vote against Repub William Weld in MA. Somehow I messed up my paperwork and was not able to vote in either state, in either race. :/
satby
@Aleta: Amnesty International should take up her cause. That case is a travesty.
Mohagan
@C Stars: I was a Daily Dish reader back in the day too, and what I liked was the way he ragged on Sarah Palin. That, and the picture from my window (where was this picture taken?). And the beagles. Always skipped the political posts about whatever dead British political philosopher he supported. My only other regret was not supporting Obama until he won the Iowa primary – I hadn’t thought he could get enough white people to vote for him to be viable. So glad to be proved wrong.
Gravenstone
@bookdragon:
It’s not that my parents were racist, rather that the entire environment was. To my knowledge, there were zero African American families living in our county. There were maybe five or six Latinx families in the county. It was basically your typical “fear of the different” sort of casual racism that we were just surrounded with. Getting away to college (even if it was a small, religion affiliated school) certainly helped expose me to different people and realities.
MobiusKlein
John Edwards.
Also I voted for a few dumb ass California Propositions ( rail, electricity, probably a few others)
BC in Illinois
I was the founder of the Col. Joseph R. Belt Junior High School Youth for Goldwater. I went to his rallies, cheered him when he came to town at National Airport, and worked at the polls from dawn until dusk. I had my hardback copy of The Conscience of a Conservative and subscribed to National Review. In my defense, I was 15 – – and there were other YFG members who went on to be productive members of society. Not too long ago, I cast a vote for a forment “Goldwater Girl.”
My real claim to notoriety came in 1966. I worked at the polls to elect Spiro Agnew as Governor of Maryland. In my defense, you should have seen the clown he was running against.
I used to think that I registered as a Democrat to vote against Nixon in 1968, but a check of the election laws shows that, at age 19, I was not yet eligible to vote. I had to wait to vote against him in 1972.
Mai Naem mobile
John Edwards sucked me in. I thought Obama was talented but I didn’t think this country would vote for a black guy and I thought the Press and the GOP would make a lot off the clintons being close to Wall Street.
Matt McIrvin
Iraq. Post-9/11 delirium. Nothing else comes close. It never actually affected my votes though.
Ladyraxterinok
@Obvious Russian Troll: Didn’t pay attn to several school board elections in IA in 70s. Found out I’d voted for some real crazies. Fortunately they didn’t win. Starting paying attn to friends I shared political views with who were much more connected to the local wheelin and dealinl
Doug R
I think I once voted for Brian Mulroney’s party
dnfree
@The Moar You Know: You are so right about local elections. The Democratic party certainly took its eye off that ball, so to speak, for the past decade-plus. The decline of local journalism has only made it worse. I was on the school board in the 1990s, and we had local reporters at every meeting, suspiciously raising questions about what we were up to–as they should. My husband recently finished a term on the county board, and there were no reporters at meetings, and no reporting of some of the shenanigans the sheriff was involved in. He got re-elected. (I should add–this is a pretty Republican area, and often we don’t even have Democratic candidates on the ballot for local races, and yet in 2008 Obama got a majority of the votes, so Democrats SHOULD have a presence here.)
Gelfling 545
@C Stars: Lately I have been using a vinegar, new to me, called Il Bianco. It is a variation of balsamic but sweeter and lighter, though it contains no added sugar. To me, it seems to make somehow fresher tasting dressing.
Buy olive oil in small amounts unless you make a ton of vinaigrette. I find it just doesn’t keep that well and soon tastes …old.
PaulWartenberg
My greatest political regret was never manning up and putting my name in to run for elective office back when I was unemployed and had the time to run a campaign. Granted, I’m a social introverted nobody lacking a voting base – I am NPA, wary of parties – so running on my own dime and lack of recognition would have been tricky…
Ruviana
@psycholinguist: I didi exactly this! What I read was Anthem where Rand writes the entire book in the first person plural (yo, no individuality in socialism, amirite?) and I thought that was extremely deep and profound. Had come to my senses before I could move on to her other book-like objects.
PaulWartenberg
@Mai Naem mobile:
I liked Obama in 2008 but considered him a national-level novice (he was just 4 years into his Senate term). So I leaned towards Edwards because I agreed with his Two Americas argument. When all the scandal stuff broke, it broke my heart.
Miss Bianca
I read Brooksie’s “Bobos in Paradise” *and* Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter With Kansas” back when I thought they were both Deep(ish) Thinkers.
Accidentally typed “Derp Thinkers”, actually like that better!
Gelfling 545
My regret is I supported Bernie early on. Sent a couple of contributions too. Thankfully, he showed his true nature ( and seriously got on my nerves) before the primary vote.
Ladyraxterinok
@snoey: I voted for OK sen Fred Harris in IA caucus in 76. He didn’t get enuff votes in our precinct to form a group.
Looking back, wish I’d gone with my real choice, S Chisholm.
PaulWartenberg
@C Stars:
I think the appeal of Sullivan’s Dish was that he was a consistent blogging presence – the days and times he DIDN’T blog were crisis-level panics online – and that he made a good-faith effort to point readers to other up-and-comers. I’m pretty sure Sullivan was the person who helped introduce Ta-Nehisi Coates to the Atlantic readership. Of course, TNC proved to be SO MUCH better with the insight and information than Sully, who just seemed to stick to a “Gosh, Gotta Save the Dead Horse of Conservatism” mindset that kept him from achieving total consciousness.
Karen
@frosty: I’ve heard of blue dogs. What is a yellow dog?
cmorenc
First time I was eligible to vote was in the 1972 Presidenial election – and voted for Nixon. Never made the mistake of voting for a Republican again after that. Nixon would have won quite handily without my vote anyway, but what most galls me in retrospect is how, at the time, I bought into the meme the GOP was successfully pushing via the MSM at the time, about how unrealistically pie-in-the sky radical and unprepared McGovern was as a potential President, compared to Nixon. Not all that dissimilar to how easily enough of today’s purported “swing” voters bought into the anti-Hillary crap being paraded in the media in the 2016 election and decided to vote for “change” and give Trump a chance. In other words, they were wilfully gullible pigeons in 2016 for GOP propaganda memes helpfully assisted by the MSM – and I was among the 1972 version of gullible pigeons.
Captain C
@Karen: It means you’d vote for whoever’s on your preferred party’s line, even if they were running an actual yellow dog.
Of course, these days, a yellow dog would be several steps up in terms of both competence and ethics than virtually any Republican on the ballot.
A Ghost To Most
@PJ: Could be. David Horowitz had occurred to me, but I never thought he would go that way.
His Marxism I rejected. I became a liberal hippy democrat with mad computer skills.
Miss Bianca
@Yarrow: At least I got my copy from the library! ; )
mrmoshpotato
Voted for Bernie in IL primary and donated too. *facepalm*
Saw the error of my ways as the months went on.
WhatsMyNym
My regret was that I delayed becoming a citizen. I was eligible at 18, but put it off until I was in my 30’s.
Oh, and I donated to Bernie once, early on in the race.
knucklehead80s
In my first election, in 1984, I voted for Ronald Reagan.
A Ghost To Most
@Miss Bianca:
Yeah, paying for it is a bigger ding.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Ladyraxterinok: Yeah, the crazies count on that.
What made it even more embarrassing for me, though, is that I was training for my (mercifully brief) teaching career at the time.
Mark Regan
Wrote in Ted Kennedy against Reagan, Carter, John Anderson, and the Libertarian in the 1980 general election.
Ted Kennedy would have been a better President than Carter, but not voting for Carter with Reagan as the alternative was absolutely the wrong thing to do.
blackcatsrule
@C Stars: OK so some thoughts. Since you’re using good olive oil and have tried more neutral flavored ones, try using a few quick pulses of a blender rather than whisking for better blending. I think this may even solve the weird taste of your vinegar and the “off” ratio of oil/vinegar. Experiment with nut oils also…hazlenut or walnut, or oils from squash seeds like pumpkin and butternut.You could also try experimenting with acids other than vinegar…lemon, grapefruit, etc.
You can’t go wrong with dijon and tarragon! Enjoy!
VOR
In early 2002, I figured the Iraq War was inevitable. Saddam was a bad guy, certainly they would find something. By late 2002 it was clear their justification was crap. The inspectors kept finding nothing. I never bought the aluminum tubes story. I watched Colin Powell at the UN and walked away thinking “that’s it? All of that is equivocal at best”. But I didn’t hit the streets to protest because it just seemed like Bush was going to do it no matter what. And the neocons had been pushing for it for so long, surely they had a plan. As the famous quote from Animal House says: “You fucked up, you trusted us”.
FelonyGovt
I voted in our local City Council elections for years, not realizing that I was actually voting for some Republicans. In my defense, those races are “non-partisan”- but I should have known better, and now I investigate their party affiliation before I vote.
J R in WV
@jc:
So, you prefer voting for Russian stooges, then?
I have done some things that I regret, but not political things. Being a yellow dog dem since I was old enough to vote made that easy. I guess I do regret voting for Joe Manchin, even tho his opponents have always been worse than Joe, he’s kinda despicable.
pinacacci
Like Betty, I voted for Nader in that fateful election. I fully bought the “Al Gore is a lying liar” narrative. Bob Somerby woke me up shortly thereafter. As a Florida voter, the guilt and shame I feel for that vote is massive.
Ladyraxterinok
@Yarrow: Heard him interviewed on NPR about that book. Didn’t know wh he was tgen.
All the time he was determined to make BClinton the badguy on the model he depicted in the book, I kept thinking W was a much better example. I had followed the super long-running thread on Salon’s TableTalk about W being AWOL from his National Guard cop-out to avoid being sent to Vietnam.
dww44
@Hildebrand: Thanks for this reminder. I too used to read Greenwald during the Bush years, albeit I frequently asked myself after reading if I actually got the point of what he said. I did sorta always think he was rather ponderous.
In terms of voting, I’ve always voted for Democrats, even when we got resoundingly defeated beginning with McGovern in 1972. Guess you’d call me the most tribal of tribal voters, because I’ve never NOT voted for the Dem on the ticket!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I was libertarian curious. I used to read libertarian bloggers and take them seriously. Even though I never voted for him, I also kind of liked Ron Paul.
laura
I voted for both John Edward’s and Bernie in their respective primaries. I lived far too long in the comfort of my white privilege.
I plan to take a backseat and look for the younger generation’s emergence and leadership to guide us out of our self-inflicted morass -local to national.
L85NJGT
I was open to the framing that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was just another Wilmerite dingbat. So far, she has been relentlessly on message.
patrick II
@schrodingers_cat:
McCain over Bush doesn’t seem too terrible to me, although we will never know for sure if McCain would actually have fought as many wars as he talked about fighting.
But Bush, and particularly Rove, continued the slide to autocracy by the Republican party with their Justice department politicization, the start of serious voter suppression, supreme court appointees that are not judges but vehicles for restoring the old order.
I personally voted for Nixon against over George McGovern. I was young, stupid, and in the military, but regardless, that is probably the worst sin I have seen in comments so far.
I also voted for John Anderson. I love Jimmy Carter, but I thought at the time he may have been too good of a man to be president. He may just have been ahead of my time.
Johannes
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, me too.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
I’m pretty sure Federal sentences are what they are now. State sentences are usually shorter in many states, time off for good behavior and all that. But I’m pretty sure MIke Cohen will serve 3 years in prison — perhaps in a minimum security “camp” up in NY somewhere, and then 3 years of supervised release probabion.
G
I was zealously in favor of invading Iraq. I was so in favor of invading Iraq that I wanted to invade France too. I was so in favor of invading Iraq that I read Andy Sullivan between classes for at least three years of college. My brother hectored me for a full-ass calendar year ahead of the 04 election and eventually got me to vote for Kerry, so I don’t have any stains on my presidential voting record, but I DID vote for the whole roster of down-ticket Republicans. As late as 06 I was still occasionally voting for Republicans.
I also, um, worked for Joe Lieberman in 06 during the primary. I was just out of college and a friend of mine was an organizer for Joe, so he got me a job doing some low-level grunt work. I still have a bunch of “Vote Joe August 8th!” shirts buried in a drawer. The day before the primary the whole campaign got together on a conference call…and Joe gave us his stump speech, for some reason, as if we hadn’t all staffed events and heard it a dozen times.
The last Republican I voted for was the schlub who ran against Joe and Ned that year, because screw both of ’em; now I’m incredibly thankful that Ned’s the governor. Life is weird.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Haven’t a clue how to find that post, assuming The Dish archive goes back that far. It was something to do with Palin criticizing Obama from the peanut gallery about the BP oil spill. Honestly, it’s not worth digging up.
ET
@Hildebrand: Same here but it only lasted for a few months and I did read all the posts all the way thought because Jebus he didn’t know when to shut up.
Ladyraxterinok
@cope: Read Atlas Shrugged in collrge in late 50s when my roommate read it. After about 100 pages I asked my self why I kept on reading it. Everything possible, including rape, had already happened. I kept on reading to the end, wondering how much more author could pile on.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@schrodingers_cat: Me, too. :(
Joey Maloney
@Death Panel Truck: Everybody’s got some good canvass stories. I had a gun pulled on me one night (back when that was a kind of unusual thing, even in small-town Indiana). It shook me up enough that I mentioned at the next house and they invited me in, poured me a bourbon and wrote me a check for my entire nightly quota in exchange for a “sworn” statement that they wrote down. The gun-puller was the neighborhood PITA and they were trying to get him locked up.
Our canvass director was legendary for making quota in really tough neighborhoods. He once made quota in the poorest project in the city, almost entirely in quarters. His rap that evening was “We’re trying to lower your electic bill. Gimme a quarter.” He came back to the van that night with his take entirely in coin – no bills.
A guy on my crew probably saved an old man’s life. He heard weak calls for help through the screen door. Poor guy had a stroke and had been lying on the kitchen floor for 2 days.
PST
There have already been 14 “John Anderson” regrets in this thread, and I’m another. I, too, learned a lesson I haven’t forgotten.
artem1s
parents were Republican, so I started out voting that way. Ronnie twice and then I was done with that mess. I regret that I let Ted Kennedy influence how I felt about Jimmy Carter. I think Ted was a smug entitled rich frat boy who blew the Democrat’s best chance of killing the GOP’s drift toward racism and austerity. I was glad to see he did try to redeem himself with the quest to try to fix health care at the end of his life. But he was still fighting with the wrong people and being generally awful to women. So yes, I also regret my brief flirtation with John Edwards. He was a pretty interesting candidate in 2004. I wish he had been more prepared during his debate with Cheney. But how do you prepare to debate the undead?
His Two America’s speech he gave at the Center for American Progress was soaring. It was printed everywhere. I first read it in my local paper. I knew as soon as I listened to the video later, that Edwards never wrote that speech. His delivery was halting; not that of someone who knows, understands, and believes the content. I’ve always wondered if Aaron Sorkin ghost wrote that speech for him. It sang that same way that the West Wing scripts did. The idea was absolutely spot on and so timely, coming right after Katrina. Edwards and Teddy have since left me with a deep suspicion of hairdo’s, charisma and splitting the party for purity’s sake.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
He’s done that every day since the election, hasn’t he?
TallPete
I used to visit balloon juice fairly frequently. That’s embarrassing.
Lee
I also count myself a Daily Dish & Greenwald survivor.
I’m heartened to see I’m in good company here at BJ.
L85NJGT
@Peale:
Rahm’s passion was the House of Representatives. I’m sure there were reasons he go dragged into the White House, and then on to the fifth floor in Chicago.
Ladyraxterinok
@Josie: I remember Blitzer getting so freaked out about that system.
The tv pundits were super stupid during the dem primary in 08. They kept going on and on about how complicated the dem IA caucus process was.
After taking part in every IA dem caucus from 72 to 88 I just wanted to scream. ‘The farmers in the most rural areas in IA get it. So you’re saying you’re dumber than tne people you think are hicks?!?!’
C Stars
@blackcatsrule: Thanks!
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
No, not like this. His prior threats ended after the election as he deluded himself into being “so popular, look at me and be awed!”
Denali
@CSStars ,
My new favorite vinegrette dressing with with apple cider vineger and maple syrup. You can blend it to your taste. Sweet and light.
randy khan
I worked on the John Anderson campaign. Not very well, but I did it.
ruemara
So many regrets.
Supported Kucinich for president; Arianna Huffington for gov. Supported Bernie for years, even after the luster was off and I realized he was mostly alarmist talk & minimal details plans. Same as referring people to Thom Hartmann, biggest Bernie booster. Even though I thought it was odd he was more atavistic towards Dems and would have the lamest conservatives on to “debate”, then roll over with lame sauce and laugh it off at the end of those segments. Supported Bernie in 2016, but at least it was with all the joy of deciding to eat tripe versus bad tripe. Funding a bunch of progressive groups who immediately became stupid from 2015 on.
Jess
I was briefly leaning towards John Edwards in the 08 primary before he imploded–it seemed like he was the only one focusing on income inequality. I guess it’s not something to be that ashamed of, but I did feel pretty embarrassed by what a snake and even worse, a fool, he turned out to be. I supposed I should be more ashamed about my flirtation with Ayn Rand and libertarianism when I was 16, but it was a good counterbalance to all the Marxist silliness of my surroundings at the time. I think it’s intellectually healthy to delve into a wide range of political philosophies–at the very least, it helps you understand the opposition, but it also forces you to think more critically about your own beliefs. I would be more embarrassed/concerned if I had never explored something I strongly disagree with now.
Apsalar
First year I could vote was 96, I voted for Dole. I grew up in a religious conservative household, and while it hadn’t completely taken (I didn’t like going to church and I didn’t have anything against gay people) I still figured voting Republican was the thing to do. I spent the next 4 years changing my mind (or rather, figuring out my own opinions) and voted for Gore in 2000. It’s not really a regret, based on how I grew up I don’t know how I could have done differently in 96, but I’m glad I came to see things differently pretty early on.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: I watched Tavis when he had a news/discussion program on BET. . I first saw/heard Dyson on his show. He had a fascinating broadcast and interviews from the Tom Joyner show, which I had never heard of before. From thd local rado station that had the Joyner show I discovered the Michael Baisdon show. And from that show I learened about the Jena 6, a story that goy basically zero attn outside the black community.
I really couldn’t figure out his later positions.
I’d heard about West and thought he sounded intriguing. But when I saw him on tv and tried to read his books (before 08), I just didn’t ‘get’ him.
Mandalay
I donated to the Sanders campaign, and continued supporting him even after it was fairly obvious (with hindsight) that he was a very flawed candidate.
He became dead to me after his reaction to the pesky matter of candidates providing their tax returns.
I now view him as a very serious threat to having a president from the Democratic Party in 2020. Not because he might win, but because he won’t give shit about screwing things up and handing the presidency to a Republican.
sheila in nc
@cmorenc: Exactly me too. In my defense, I turned 18 a whole 4 days before the election (first Presidential election following the 26th amendment) and I was pretty clueless. But like you, I completely had the idea of McGovern as too radical (what’s this stuff about giving everybody $1K?) and I was immature and insufficiently clued in to the issues around the war. (Probably would have been more tuned in if I’d been eligible for the draft.) When I read McGovern’s platform now, on Wikipedia, my first thought is, what’s not to like? Sigh.
Also have to cop to a John Anderson vote. Argh.
After grad school, when I came back home to Maryland, I think I voted for moderate Republican Connie Morella at least once for Congress. But I finally quit her completely when Gingrich became Speaker.
No R or 3rd party votes ever since.
Martin
In ~1990 my dad and I took a trip up to Nova Scotia. We stopped at a restaurant in Maine on the way, and no sooner did we arrive then a group of cars pulled up, and we were pulled out of the restaurant and questioned. Turned out we picked a place that GHWB chose for dinner while he was on vacation as president. He and Barbara were at a table with some other folks – maybe Secret Service, who knows, I was still in college at the time. He came by and met the others in the restaurant, so I got to shake his hand. We were a number of tables away, mostly not caring about them but a bit amused by the encounter. I didn’t particularly care about him politically. I didn’t like Reagan, but I wasn’t politically active at that time. Anyway, on the way to the men’s room I passed him while he was up and walking and because the Secret Service drop their guard when they’re in a controlled space like that, that there was a possible opportunity that could have choked him out. Pretty sure the SS would have taken me down before I finished, but it might have worked. I was 21 and in quite good shape at the time. Sometimes I wonder if that wouldn’t have been a worthwhile attempt. Not sure it would have spared us from GWB, but if Star Trek has taught me anything, its that fucking with the timeline leads to unexpected results, so it might have been worth it. Or maybe we’d have President Kanye West now. Who the fuck knows.
All I know is that if I should find the same situation with Trump, I’m probably going for it.
Cheryl from Maryland
Went to school with Morgan Griffith (VA-09 GOP Crazy). Kicked him in the shin as he was being a bully. Should have kicked higher (I had metal toe taps on my shoes, so I could have done some real damage).
Otherwise, voted for Ford, Voted for Anderson, Voted D ever since.
Quaker in a Basement
I have no political regrets because I am always right and never wrong, so you should listen to me.
Ladyraxterinok
@WereBear: In 56 in HS our class (in OK) had a poll between Stevenson and Ike. I’ll never forget the boy in the front of the room who turned around in his seat and threatenly said said nobody better vote for Stevenson!
In grad school in early 60s in CA some of us were talking in the dept office, and a guy from the East said everyone he knew had voted for Stevenson. I was flabbergasted.
Mandalay
@Martin:
If you had tried that with Bush they would have killed you in a New York minute. With Trump they might give you a round of applause.
xlurker
I too made the Nader mistake in Florida in 2000. I will be forever mortified. Later it would be shown that only about 500 of us would have made the difference if we had voted for Gore (and had every vote been counted.) Therefore, I take 1/500th of the responsibility for causing the Iraq War.
Sorry
Dread
I was still in the Evangelical camp and voted against gay marriage in California when it was on the ballot.
Wish I could go back and kick my own ass then for hurting, marginalizing, and discriminating against other people who hadn’t done me any wrong.
Ladyraxterinok
@Mohagan: On the afternoon of election day in 80 I went knocking on doors of dems in my IA precinct who hadn’t yet voted. I did it with a heavy heart because I just KNEW they were voting FOR Reagan and AGAINST the ERA ballot question. Not a happy day.
Emily B.
I am sorry not sorry about contributing to John Edwards. He single-handedly made healthcare reform a campaign issue in 2007. Hillary followed him, then Obama. Without John Edwards, there would be no Obamacare.
But thank God he dropped out when he did….
Eljai
I like to go to book readings from time to time and buy books signed by the authors. This is how I ended up with signed books from David Sirota and Glenn Greenwald. Even if I come to dislike a writer I once respected, it’s hard for me to just throw a book into the dumpster. But I may have made some exceptions.
MomSense
@C Stars:
That is one of my favorite dressings. I use that for my Easter/Spring salad which is romaine chiffonade with finely chopped fresh dill and then a dressing of Dijon, honey, fresh lemon juice, minced shallot, olive and grape seed oil mixed, and salt and pepper.
The basic French vinaigrette is about a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt pepper, 3/4 cup olive oil, and 1/4 cup vinegar or other acid. All measurements are approximate because I don’t measure!
You can substitute lemon juice for vinegar or 1/2 lemon juice and 1/2 vinegar. You just need an acidic ingredient.
Directions:
Drink a bit of wine
Laugh at something amusing
Take a small spoon out of the drawer and scoop about half a spoon full of mustard in a bowl or large, liquid measuring cup
Add salt,pepper, herbs of your choice, minced shallot, garlic, or green onion. Just salt and pepper is totally fine!
If you have a sweeter palate you can add a bit of honey or use a sweeter vinegar like aged or white balsamic
Whisk thoroughly so all the ingredients are mixed well
Now drizzle the olive oil or oil mix (grape seed is light tasting and healthy) very slowly whisking quickly as you drizzle. You are trying to incorporate the oil and the oil doesn’t care for being mixed.
Stop and taste frequently. French women dip their pinky in the dressing with flair and then taste. Too much acid? Add more oil. Bitter? Add some honey. You can always add but you can’t subtract.
If you aren’t serving it right away, you can give it a whisk again later.
Just experiment and have fun.
Jack the Cold Warrior
1972 voted for Nixon. Was 19, was from a military family and thought McGovern was too liberal. College and Hunter Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, 1972” turned me into an almost Marxist, which was strange considering my work situation as a LT in a Mech Infantry Battalion in Germany. But since the USSR and Warsaw Pact were Stalinist and an evil empire, I was proud to serve on freedom’s frontier.
Never voted for a Republican again.
Warren in 2020!!!!
Ridnik Chrome
I voted for Nader in 2000 (in New York, not Florida), and encouraged others to do so. I still think Gore was an ass for picking Lieberman as his running mate, but knowing how things turned out, I’d take either one over Bush and Cheney. Also, I was a relatively late (my mid-twenties) convert to being pro-choice on abortion.
Ladyraxterinok
@Mark Regan: A lot of people were literally afraid to vote for Teddy. They (we) were afraid he’d be assassinated just like his 2 older brothers.
Ridnik Chrome
I have to say that it gives me hope to read this thread and see how many people here started out as Nixon, Reagan and Bush voters.
Ladyraxterinok
@dww44: My son (b in 69) used to ask us plaintively ‘Do you guys ever vote for someone who wiiiins?!’
David Anderson
I used to read BOPNews and OpenLeft on a regular basis
Lurker1
I read the FTFNYT both online and dead-tree versions for years. Quit cold turkey in Feb 2016 and haven’t peeked ONCE!
eemom
Cool thread.
1. Nader 2000 — but only because Virginia was solid red back then.
2. Fell for the Edwards schtick.
3. Contributed to PETA. In my defense, it was before they went totally batshit.
eemom
@Ladyraxterinok:
Started voting in 1980. For 12 years I had to listen to my Dad tell me I was 0 for 1, 0 for 2, 0 for 3….
emmyelle
I skpiied voting in 1996. I was living out of the country, and traveling around the time of the election. But I could have managed it. My rationale was that Clinton was going to win, and I didn’t love him anyway. Of course, he did win, but I was lazy and infantile in my thinking, and I regret that. And it interrupted my perfect record of presidential election voting.
I also regret, a little, that I turned on Hillary Clinton in 2008. At the start of the campaign I was open-mined, enthusiastic about both her and Obama. As the campaign wore on, I do think she (and especially Bill) got a little nasty. But I went kind of ballistic. I would spew anti-Hillary venom to anyone who would listen. When she gave her beautiful, beautiful concession speech at then and of the primary, when she had the popular margin but not the delegates, I felt something like regret, not that she wouldn’t be the nominee (I was all about Obama), but that something potentially so amazing had gotten so ugly, and pile-ons by people like me contributed to the ugliness.
zhena gogolia
I believed Tony Blair about Iraq. I didn’t believe-believe him, because I knew in my gut that it wasn’t true. But I also thought he was a decent person and couldn’t believe he’d lie about something so consequential.
schrodingers_cat
One regret, didn’t apply for citizenship before the 2016 election. So couldn’t vote against Ttanic in 2016.
I sent in my application one day before Orangeness was inaugurated.
AnneWith
I voted for Rod Blagojevich in his 1st gubernatorial election. (Not the 2nd: I voted for Judy Baar Topinka.) My elation at his impeachment & conviction was lessened just a tad by the fact that I’d been one of the idiots who put him in office in the first place.
Brachiator
@oldster:
Same here. I think I read a military analyst’s explanation of the so-called “shock and awe” strategy and decided it was total bullshit. But still, for a while, I bought into the nonsense that Saddam should be deposed.
ETA: Early on I saw that a great deal of libertarianism was founded on racism. Libertarians would cite Barry Goldwater as “principled opposition” to civil rights legislation. But libertarians who supposedly believed in magically free markets absent any government intervention never seemed to oppose laws mandating segregation, and I have never heard of any libertarian who marched with civil rights workers.
Betty Cracker
@xlurker: I’ve made that same calculation and also hold myself approximately 1/500th responsible for the Iraq War. I’ll count that vote among the worst things I’ve ever done for the rest of my life.
@emmyelle: Me too! I was annoyed as hell at Clinton and absolutely loathed her supporters in 2008. I wasted a lot of time skirmishing with PUMAs online and was sometimes mean and personal about it in a way I still regret.
sixthdoctor
Nader vote, 2000. If I could I’d punch my younger self in the groin for that…and then again a few years later for the fifty bucks I gave Edwards.
Sirkowski
I voted Yes in the 1995 Quebec referendum even though I was and still am a federalist. It looked like the No was gonna win by a large margin and I thought the rest of Canada was gonna get too cocky with an easy victory. That was too close for comfort…
Leumas
My very first vote in 1972 at age 18 and one month (it was the first presidential election in which 18 year olds could vote) I voted for Richard Nixon. I will forever regret it.
DavidC
@sheila in nc:
I don’t think that voting for Connie Morella in 1992 (my first national election as a Free Stater) was a mortal sin, but when I saw that a vote for her was a vote for Gingrich, I decided that I couldn’t support any more national Republicans.
Maybe my regret was that I was an Independent until 1988, so I missed a bunch of primaries.
Through social media, local message boards, and actual meetings and fora, I’ve become much more informed about local races. We really need to take these races seriously – and then vote for the Democrats, but it’s important to choose the right Democrats in the primaries.
lauryn11
My third party flirtation was John Anderson. My father caught me reading Ayn Rand’s “ The Virtue of Selfishness” in high school. He told me she was a crackpot but I didn’t listen. Sorry, entire world. Sorry dad.
MattF
@DavidC: I almost voted for Morella several times. Democrats kept nominating apparatchiks, and Morella was obviously a good, competent individual. And a Republican who was to the left of most Democrats in Congress. I voted Democrat anyhow (le sigh), but I still wonder about that. I don’t count it as a regret, though. And back in those days when there were actual Republicans in Montgomery County and not the ragtag set of nutjobs you see today…
pacem appellant
I helped get a LaRouche club started at my university in the late 90s.
I voted Libertarian in the first national election after my 18th birthday.
I used to always vote against bond measures in CA solely because they *gasp* cost money.
TomatoQueen
Nader regret, Connecticut, Lieberman’s sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy and his wife’s connection to fucking insurance companies not overcome by commonsense about 3rd parties. Olive oil regret, not being rich enough to afford the French, so having to make do with adulterated Italian or puny domestic versions.
celiadexter
Looks like my regrets were pretty garden-variety, many of which earlier commenters engaged in and which were excusable at the time, like thinking Camille Paglia was interesting (I believed the reviewers but couldn’t get through Sexual Personae), supporting John Edwards (I want my 50 bucks back!) and appreciating Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher once (they actually made sense 15 years ago). I’m still embarrassed about the books I bought but haven’t finished, like Robert Caro’s series on LBJ, Rick Perlstein’s books on the American right (I read and loved Nixonland, but Before the Storm and The Invisible Bridge are still on my coffee table) and Chris Hayes’s books. There’s still time. But my biggest regret is not listening to my mother and not studying history when I was younger. She got me involved in left/Dem politics starting in kindergarten in the ’50s and was my greatest influence, but she was a history teacher and thought — correctly — that I was woefully ignorant. I’m trying to make up for it now but am still disappointing myself.
DigitalAmish
Supported Goldwater in ’64. His support from the hottest girl in class (her parents it turned out were Birchers) is what won me over to his side. I was 14. Haven’t ever actually voted for someone without a D at the end of their name.
beckya57
Voted for John Anderson (in my defense I was in my early 20’s). Used to like and read David Broder and later Glenn Greenwald. Was (VERY BRIEFLY) impressed by W because he talked about compassion and spoke some Spanish. I’m going to go hang my head in shame now.
Burnspbesq
I took Greenie seriously for a while. He was ex-Wachtell Lipton, and the Wachtell Lipton lawyers I’ve worked with are uniformly among the smartest, most creative, most ethical lawyers i know.
It didn’t take long to figure out why he was ex-Wachtell Lipton.
Burnspbesq
@Ladyraxterinok:
Re West: i thought “Democracy Matters” was brilliant, but it turned out to be his one moment of glory. I stopped donating to WBGO when they started running his radio abomination with Tavis Smiley.
emmyelle
Wow. Lots of Nader voters. I appreciate that you all are owning this.
You know, Bush was an absolute disaster, but Im not sure we would have had Obama had Gore won.
Yikes, that sounds like Berner thinking.
frosty
@Karen: Dead thread, but it’s from the pre-Southern Strategy south:
“I’d vote for a yaller dog if he’s a Democrat.”
JT
Used to think Andrew Sullivan was worth reading. Hoped that Obama might choose John Edwards as his VP candidate after I saw them speak at an event together. (Thank goodness he didn’t!)
glaukopis
Voted for Anderson in 80, and learned the lesson about voting 3rd party in the US. It’s not just a wasted vote, it’s essentially a vote for the other side.
docamous
It’s hard to put succinctly without failing to be clear, but I spent most of my life believing I knew stuff, only to find out in the last decade that I knew nothing about anything. My whole life of casual conservatism, and the votes that resulted, was based on my ignorance.
jml
I was behind Lieberman joining the ticket in 2000, thought it was a smart choice and he was a good democrat blah blah blah. and then he sold us down the river by mailing in the VP debate, then compounded it by selling us out again in FL. Then I did the deep dive on who Lieberman really was and vowed never to take such a light look at a VP candidate again.
Kept me from being fooled by Edwards, at least.