Who Was Your First Presidential Vote - DU Poll

[Meldread]

93. Ralph Nader.

I had just turned eighteen in 2000. I was angry at Clinton / Gore for passing DOMA and DADT. I was also disenfranchised with 'third way' DLC Democrats, who honestly didn't represent me at all. I am a liberal.

Ralph Nader spoke to me. He is the person who got me politically active with one of his campaign speeches. He was basically pushing the same agenda that Bernie Sanders is pushing today, but his message was directly to people my age at the time: 'Turn onto politics, before politics turns on you!' He kept repeating that over and over, and I was actively under assault from the religious right, who had much more overt power and influence at the time.

By 2002 I had started to become more fully informed on the issues, and I had started to take a stand against the drum beat to war in Iraq. It was around this time also that I discovered DU, and around this time formally became a member of the Democratic Party. I then supported Howard Dean in 2004 for the Democratic Party nomination, voted for Kerry in the election, supported Obama in 2008 for the nomination, and voted for him twice for President.

I've become a lot more pragmatic as I've gotten older, though my liberalism has never faded or faltered. The values that I held at eighteen years old have only strengthened, deepened, and magnified as I became older and wiser and better able to articulate and defend them. I've had the pleasure of watching the DLC and 'third way' Democrats slowly die off, and the Democratic Party start tacking more toward the left.