John Yemma: Vote the Way You Did That First Time
[John Yemma is an editor with the CS Monitor.]
Do you remember the first time you voted? For me, it was 1972, the year Richard Nixon faced George McGovern. I won’t tell you who got my vote or whether I eventually felt justified or embarrassed. And, no, it isn’t obvious, even if you harbor suspicions about a person who later made a career in the media.
Like many adults, I’ve gotten blasé about voting since that first time, although when I see the excitement of voters newly enfranchised by age or freedom, I feel a tug of remembrance. When Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel went from dissidents to presidents only months after the fall of communism, when South Africans chose the indomitable Nelson Mandela in 1994, when Iraqis joyously held up inked index fingers in 2005 – democracy once again seemed like the secular sacrament it did that first time....
Read entire article at CS Monitor
Do you remember the first time you voted? For me, it was 1972, the year Richard Nixon faced George McGovern. I won’t tell you who got my vote or whether I eventually felt justified or embarrassed. And, no, it isn’t obvious, even if you harbor suspicions about a person who later made a career in the media.
Like many adults, I’ve gotten blasé about voting since that first time, although when I see the excitement of voters newly enfranchised by age or freedom, I feel a tug of remembrance. When Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel went from dissidents to presidents only months after the fall of communism, when South Africans chose the indomitable Nelson Mandela in 1994, when Iraqis joyously held up inked index fingers in 2005 – democracy once again seemed like the secular sacrament it did that first time....