{"id":49612,"date":"2021-11-07T22:33:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T22:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49612"},"modified":"2021-11-07T22:33:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-07T22:33:26","slug":"first-election-was-a-heartbreaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=49612","title":{"rendered":"First election was a heartbreaker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Forty-nine years ago on this very day I cast my first vote for president.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of the networks opening their election-night broadcasts, my heart broke into a million little pieces.<\/p>\n

Sen. George McGovern ran for president in 1972 against Richard Nixon, the incumbent who sought re-election amid the Vietnam War (which was drawing to a close, even as protesters marched on our streets) and a burgeoning scandal, Watergate, that eventually would bring Nixon\u2019s presidency to a premature close.<\/p>\n

I was a young college student. I had just returned from that war, confused and as uncertain about our mission in Vietnam as I was when I landed in-country in March 1969.<\/p>\n

I was newly married, too. The first of our sons would be born in just a few weeks, but I had gotten totally involved in politics. I worked to register college students to vote in that election at the college I attended in East Multnomah County, Ore. I was looking for budding Democrats to help defeat President Nixon.<\/p>\n

I was a flaming lefty back then. I have moderated my views since then, but at the age of 23 I thought I knew all there was to know.<\/p>\n

Well, Nov. 7 dawned that day and I actually had a thought in my noggin that we might be able to pull off a miracle, that Sen. McGovern somehow would prevail in his fight against President Nixon.<\/p>\n

What in the world was I thinking? The polls wouldn\u2019t close until 8 p.m. in Oregon. Wouldn\u2019t you know it? Sometime shortly after the polls closed on the\u00a0East Coast\u00a0<\/em>the networks called it: Nixon would win re-election.<\/p>\n

Boy, did he ever. He finished with a 40-state landslide, a 23-percentage point victory in the balloting; the Electoral College total ended up 520 for the president, 17 for the senator (with one of the electors voting for a third candidate).<\/p>\n

I was \u2014 to put it plainly \u2014 crushed! That would be the final election in which I ever would become an active participant. I had started my journalism career in 1976, so volunteering for voter-registration drives was out of the question.<\/p>\n

Hey, but here\u2019s a bit of cheer: Sen. McGovern carried Multnomah County, Ore., by just a little; he would lose Oregon to the president by double digits.<\/p>\n

It was a game-changer for me. It whetted my appetite for covering and commenting on politics and politicians throughout my journalism career.<\/p>\n

I am happy to report that my eternal optimism perhaps flickered a bit that evening, but it didn\u2019t die.<\/p>\n

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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Forty-nine years ago on this very day I cast my first vote for president. Within minutes of the networks opening their election-night broadcasts, my heart broke into a million little pieces. Sen. George McGovern ran for president in 1972 against Richard Nixon, the incumbent who sought re-election amid the Vietnam War (which was drawing to … Continue reading First election was a heartbreaker<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1893,3940],"class_list":["post-49612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-george-mcgovern","tag-richard-nixon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49613,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49612\/revisions\/49613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}