Nancy Anne Dawe
Confessions of a political junkie
Tue Jan 20 16:20:18 2004
64.140.158.139

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Confessions of a political junkie who continues to change and care
BY NANCY ANNE DAWE
http://www.charleston.net/stories/012004/com_20dawe.shtml

I confess. I'm a confirmed "political junkie" -- and have been since childhood.

Growing up surrounded by history in Quincy, Mass., had a lot to do with it. Situated a few miles south of Boston, it's often called the City of Presidents as both John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, the second and sixth U.S. presidents, were born here. Their modest farmhouses remain today, the two oldest presidential birthplaces in the country. The beautiful "Adams Mansion" is here, too, a colonial dwelling famous as the place where the aged John Adams penned his elaborate correspondence to Thomas Jefferson -- and where he died on July 4th, 1826.

Quincy Square, the city's hub, is dominated by the magnificent United First Parish Church, an edifice built of granite donated by John Adams. Both Adams presidents were lifelong members, and Quincy native John Hancock -- president of the Continental Congress and first signer of the Declaration of Independence -- was baptized in this church.

So the past was my political prologue.

Even more influential, however, was my father's passion for politics, which my twin sister, Midge, and I found contagious -- even at nine years of age. That was in 1940, when he worked indefatigably for Republican Wendell Willkie's campaign against Franklin Delano Roosevelt's third term, just as he would for Thomas E. Dewey four years later. Our parents were staunch Republicans, and we often snuck out of bed to huddle unseen on the upper staircase, listening to their comments as various candidates gave speeches on the radio.

But it was while Midge and I were working our way through Boston University that politics grew up close and personal. We became part-time airline stewardesses in 1951 for the Boston-based regional carrier, Northeast Airlines -- one of whose stops was in Hyannis, Mass.

It was there that a whispered "The Ambassador is coming!" from the station manager could only mean that Joseph P. Kennedy was about to board. A young Robert Kennedy was one of my passengers, too, and one of our blonde and buxom stewardesses dated JFK himself.

I found the distinguished Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith -- famed for her independence, and the first woman elected to both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate -- on her hands and knees looking under her seat for a lost ticket to Washington. And Georgia's Democratic Sen. Richard Russell talked politics with me as he was swinging through Maine in the summer of 1952 to drum up support for his presidential nomination plans.

I excitedly cast my first presidential vote that year and again in 1956 for Dwight D. Eisenhower. By then, a young wife and mother living in Holbrook, Mass., I would become adviser to the Senior High Fellowship of Holbrook's Congregational Church. Among my teenage group, I spotted a natural leader who's now known worldwide: Andrew H. Card, chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

In the spring of 1960, wanting to cast a really informed presidential vote, I read new political biographies of both Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. But while watching the conventions, I got caught up in Republican fervor, volunteered at Holbrook's Republican Town Committee, and oversaw the Nixon-Lodge coffee parties. As the contest continued, I was becoming mesmerized by Kennedy's magnetism, but my ingrained heritage won out and I voted for Nixon. It was to be my last Republican presidential vote.

My political metamorphosis was sparked by the Civil Rights movement, with successive Democratic ballots cast for Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Jimmy Carter.

During these years, too busy raising three children to become actively involved, I'd remain fascinated by anything political, as had Midge, whose views paralleled mine. But in 1980, when Independent candidate John Anderson burst on the scene, we both exuberantly embraced his candidacy, becoming his campaign's co-coordinators in Massachusetts' 12th Congressional District. What an intoxicating experience it was!

Anderson, a 10-term Republican congressman from Illinois, had lost the Republican nomination to Ronald Reagan, but repositioned himself as a centrist between Reagan and incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Compelling and dynamic, he energized people across the political spectrum with his liberal social and foreign policies and conservative economics. My husband and I lived in Duxbury, Mass., then, and when one citizen invited Anderson to speak, he expected 50 people to show up. When a horde appeared, the homeowner legitimately worried his floors would cave in simply from the weight of all those people.

Midge and I carried Anderson's message to many public schools, including one where the teacher announced to his excited class, "Ah, the Anderson campaign has arrived!" We passed out innumerable Anderson leaflets and buttons, attended his appearances, made phone calls, rang door bells, wrote newspaper commentaries, got angry when President Carter excluded him from national debates, and held placards at the polls on Election Day. Although he didn't win, it had been thrilling to take part in this Americana.

By 1984, living in Atlanta, my husband and I attended a campaign rally for Carter's vice president, Fritz Mondale, who was opposing Reagan. Held at a famous plantation, it presented a powerful panorama: a sea of excited multi-ethnic faces; flags; homemade signs; sheriffs on horseback; the Secret Service; Carter and assorted Georgia dignitaries. This electric energy coalesced again in 1988, when Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis addressed a tremendous crowd in the small town of Hawkinsville, Ga. To the music of the high school band, notables like Jimmy and Roslynn Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn, and Congressman John Lewis of Civil Rights fame paraded their support. Alas, to no avail.

I voted for Bill Clinton in '92 and '96 (before he besmirched the presidency) and Al Gore in 2000 (I really wanted Bill Bradley). But I admired Sen. John McCain's outspokenness, and when he campaigned on Seabrook Island, I went to hear him. I had a personal reason, too: to photograph him for a high school friend, later a Naval jet fighter pilot, with whom McCain had served on the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. As they were stationed off the coast of Vietnam on July 29, 1967, McCain had flown that morning as my friend's wingman before the horrendous fire that later engulfed the ship.

In 2004, Midge and I for the first time are supporting different candidates -- she, Wesley Clark, me, Howard Dean. I proudly wear my Dean pin every day, have sent money, and have handwritten numerous letters to Iowans.

I like to think that political junkies care deeply about the country, and this obsession salutes John Adams and other American patriots who made open political discourse possible. But I've learned, too, that one's political opinions are not always popular. Some years ago at a Quincy High School class reunion, I was seated next to my jet pilot friend. After talking for a while, he said in genuine astonishment, "My God! You and Midge are liberals. Your parents would roll over in their graves!"

Nancy Anne Dawe is a writer/photojournalist who lives on Seabrook Island.
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