My Political Photo Album

As I get ready to cast my 12th vote for the presidency, I've been thinking in political snapshots. The scrapbook in my mind is a big one, because politics was always one of the really important subjects in our house when I was growing up. That was probably true in a lot of homes, but my family is Irish and you know how the Irish are. They love to fight, and really, what is a political campaign but a huge, knock down, drag out fight?

The first picture in that book is a rather tattered and yellowed one from the year 1948. It's of two girls in a noisy old iron bed, one six, the other twelve. It's the middle of the night, but voices from the other room keeping waking them up. The twelve-year old, Peggy, wants her Dad to come in to tell her who is winning. She's a pretty intense young lady, a lot like her father. The six-year old knows that she should be worried if Harry Truman doesn't win, if some guy named Dewey becomes president. When Daddy hasn't been to bed all night, it's pretty obvious that this is a very big deal. From the door, he tells Peggy that nothing is decided yet, and that she needs to say a prayer and go back to sleep. When the two girls wake up in the morning, all is right with the world. The man named Truman has surprised everyone and won.

The picture from 1952 is little different, of a dour looking family in the tiny kitchen of an apartment reading the Globe-Democrat's joyful announcement that Eisenhower has been elected president. The fact that the Globe-Democrat is happy about it is a definite clue that it's not good for us. Even at ten, I knew that the Globe was a "Republican rag", so, of course, that would be happy that the little man from Illinois, Adlai Stevenson, who spoke so beautifully, had been defeated. The paper seemed especially gleeful that twenty years of Democratic rule had come to an end. This all came as a big surprise to me at ten. From everything I'd heard the Democrats were the good guys and the Republicans were the bad guys.

The 1960s has so many little photos, one of the handsome Irishman running for office. God, he was beautiful and Catholic, just like me. There's another one of a really nasty flier stuffed under the doors in the very Jewish neighborhood where we lived. It said that John Kennedy's father, Joe, was a Nazi sympathizer who wanted to appease Hitler, thus helping to get millions of Jews killed. Daddy said it's what you'd expect from Nixon, who had run an especially nasty campaign against Helen Geohegan Douglas back in California years ago. He was a bastard, my Dad said. Even Eisenhower didn't seem to like him much. As usual, when it came to politics, my father turned out to be 110 percent correct. Nixon certainly was a bastard.

I need to take a good look at that photo; it's the very first piece of dirty tricks campaign literature I ever saw. Wasn't the last, though.

The pictures from the 1960s are interspersed with photos of a very nasty war being played out on our TV, of the tragic assassination of an inspirational leader By the time the 1968election came about, I could no longer even look at Lyndon Johnson because of all those pictures of death and dying. War, civil rights and more tragic assassinations. Martin Luther King shot... what an awful day that was. There's a picture of Eugene McCarthy, a senator who opposed the war and caused Lyndon Johnson to decide against another term. There's the very vivid picture of Bobby Kennedy leaving the ballroom in California and dying on the kitchen floor in the hotel where he was shot to death. Hubert Humphrey, the Happy Warrior when people were sick of war. Here's an older, "new" Nixon, with his hand held up in the V of Victory.....the "new" Nixon, who turned out to be exactly like the "old" Nixon.

The 70's pictures include one of George McGovern at a shopping center, my friend Ruth and I dragging six little kids to get a glimpse of "the next president of the United States", the one who would end the war in Vietnam. Alas, that was not to be. Just more of Nixon.
Tucked in among photos of the two major candidates is one of George Corley Wallace, an expecially nasty piece of humanity who got a lot of votes that year. Racism is not a pretty thing. The most heart-wrenching picture is of a little girl, also named Peggy, crying her eyes out on election night 1972 when McGovern lost. She was only seven and this was her first campaign loss. She took it very hard.

There are pictures from the Watergate hearings, very exciting pictures of democracy actually working. There's a shot of a disgraced Nixon stepping down, a picture of Gerald Ford taking the oath, a picture of Jimmy Carter riding right past us in a limo while campaigning in St.Louis. There are pictures of Ronald Reagan, one of George Herbert Walker Bush, one of Michael Dukakis, of course, one of Willie Horton, a black man who turned out to be the first Bush's very best friend. I see Bill Clinton, former Governor of Arkansas making a speech on C-Span. Five minutes into it, I knew that this was a guy that I could support. Great political photos from the 90s, if you are a Democrat.

The 21st century just shows one photo after another of a smirking, dim looking guy who is, astonishingly, the President of the United States of America. Here's a picture of him rousing the masses after a nasty, dishonorable attack on our country. This could be the only decent photo of the guy doing his job right. It's followed by a picture of me, my children, my friends, all marching against the invasion of Iraq. There's Ruth and her daughters, there's Mary Sue and her husband, my dear friend, Carol, and her daughter, there's my Peggy, my son, Dennis, and me. We are all walking down Delmar Boulevard in University City, peacefully protesting Iraq. It's one of my proudest pictures...shows I did my job well. Now,here's a funny one, Bush in a flight suit on a carrier declaring "Mission Accomplished", when, of course, it isn't.

So, now I am getting ready to cast my vote for president this twelfth time. I'm sure you can figure out who I'll be voting for. It's one of the proudest votes of my lifetime. It says a lot about where we are and where we may be going as a country. Not to be too corny, it speaks to HOPE. It's been one nasty campaign...the Democrats have run a clean and disciplined one, while the other side has been pretty much of a disgrace, sort of Nixon on steroids.

Here's hoping that the next photo I put into my political photo album is of a handsome young man smiling as he accepts his victory and takes on the huge task he has before him. May it be followed by photos of my country at peace, working with other countries to make the world a better place. My album is almost complete. I wouldn't be sad if these were a few of the last ones I'll ever add.