For the purposes of posterity, though not necessarily pride, here is a summary of the votes I’ve made over the years for President of the United States.
2024: Trump vs. Harris. Count me in the minority of Americans who thought Joe Biden did a pretty good job as president. On the other hand, despite all his baggage as insurrectionist, convicted criminal and general obscene blow-hardiness, Trump ran away with the Republican primaries. I cannot explain or forgive the Republican party’s acquiescence, cowardice and obeisance toward him. Biden handily won the Democratic primaries but face-planted in his first and only debate with Trump. A few weeks later Kamala Harris was anointed as Democratic nominee. I felt she ran a good campaign and she readily had my vote but the polls remained exceedingly close down to the wire. On election day I was actually hopeful she would pull out a win as long as women came out to vote in strength. By election evening it was clear that hadn’t happened and in fact men came out more strongly for Trump, proving once again you can’t accurately poll for racism and misogyny. Trump’s second term promises to be dark, difficult and ever more outrageous; my fragile glimmer of short-term hope is Trump’s track record of incompetence and lack of interest in actually governing. The 2026 midterms can’t come soon enough.
2020: Biden vs. Trump. After four years of Trump’s relentless assaults on decency, decorum and democracy…not to mention his (first) impeachment and tragic mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no question I would vote for any Democrat. It would have been nice if one of the Democratic primary contestants actually inspired me but that was not a prerequisite. As things stood, I voted for Joe Biden in the primaries as the least problematic and most likely to defeat Trump. We held our breath on election night and then for several more days as votes were counted and recounted until Biden was conclusively declared the winner. But things didn’t end there, did they? The aftermath from election day to January 6 was an extended limbo of increasingly ludicrous claims as it became clear that Trump simply wasn’t going to give up. I’m writing this nearly two years later and we’re still cleaning up the 2020 mess, about to face the 2022 midterms, and have a lot of concern about what 2024 will bring.
2016: Trump vs. Clinton. And then there was Trump. In 2015-2016 it seemed the stage was finally set for Hillary Clinton. At the beginning she was the clear front-runner, not only for the Democratic nomination but for the general election. As time and the primary wore on, she became a less appealing candidate. Bernie Sanders injected some progressive energy from the left but I could never see him actually governing. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s candidacy moved from being a joke to sideshow to rock concert to unexpected contender to viable candidate to Republican steamroller. I found the whole thing inexplicable. Hillary had my vote in the primaries and general election, but again it was a reluctant one. I was as surprised and depressed as everyone I knew on election night when the results started to roll in Trump’s favor. As I write this, we are living in the god-awful aftermath, on the verge of 2018 midterms, hoping for a blue wave but fearing a validation and continuation of Trump and his excesses.
2012: Obama vs. Romney. The Obama presidency was not as glorious as it could have (should have) been. Some blame goes to him and his administration, to be sure, but the lion’s share in my book was due to Republican obstinacy and obstruction throughout his terms, exemplified by Senate minority (and later majority) leader Mitch McConnell. Obama had some significant accomplishments, especially navigating the financial crisis and health care reform, but always with compromises and delays, it seemed. Divisions in the country grew sharper, amplified by Internet and cable news echo chambers; instead of the country coming together it seemed like everyone was taking sides. My 2012 vote went to Obama without reservation but not with as much enthusiasm as the first time.
2008: Obama vs. McCain. With Bush term-limited and having blundered through the disasters of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina and a spiraling financial crisis, the country was largely ready for a change and time was ripe for a Democratic presidency. The question was who would be the candidate. Hillary Clinton seem preordained at the outset but Barack Obama ran an exciting, insurgent campaign that gained ground through the primaries. Obama had been a near-unknown Illinois state senator when he gave a galvanizing keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that put him in a national spotlight. He ran in 2008 largely on the basis of that message and his own charisma and speaking ability, minimizing his less-than-one-term experience as a US Senator. I voted for him in the primaries (I had finally registered as a Democrat in Maryland after being frustrated that an independent could not vote in primaries) and in the general election. There was no chance I would vote for John McCain, particularly after he chose Sarah Palin as running mate and the economy imploded in some very harrowing weeks in September-October 2008. My vote for Obama was my first fully committed, hopeful vote for a presidential candidate and in the rush of an emotional election victory and inauguration it seemed a proud moment for the country. If only we could make that last. (Nope.)
2004: Bush vs. Kerry. Bush was bumbling through the first year of his presidency when the 9/11 attacks occurred and really did change everything. The nation was knocked on its heels; it took weeks to get over the initial numbing shock, and within a month we invaded Afghanistan in what at first seemed a contained effort to wipe out Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and its Taliban support. The Cheney–Rumsfeld–Wolfowitz band of neoconservatives took advantage of the crisis to promote a global war on terror, the Patriot Act and eventually the Iraq War. I felt each of these successive steps were xenophobic overreach, but to the extent there was resistance it was muted. America largely went along, to its discredit. By the time the 2004 election came around, the country was still in the throes of “support the troops” patriotism. The actual election results were fairly close, but at the time John Kerry did not seem to pose much of a threat; he got my vote but it wasn’t a surprise that Bush was re-elected.
2000: Bush vs. Gore. Clinton’s second term was more of a mess with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment vote, quasi-wars in the Balkans, a booming economy, and budget surpluses for 1998-2000. There were a lot of positives in the general economy and world affairs, but the Clintons themselves were problematic and Al Gore was a lackluster campaigner. George W. Bush seemed like the least qualified Bush available but he gained traction with the Republican establishment and outmaneuvered John McCain for right wing support. The general election was painfully close and one of the most consequential of my lifetime. I voted for Gore as did most of Maryland and it seemed like nationwide he would win. Late on election night, Florida, which had been called in Gore’s favor, shifted back to undecided. It was so close they needed a recount in Florida which went on for weeks (and gave us “hanging chads“) and finally, a month later, a 5-4 Supreme Court vote that stopped the re-count. Bush was the victor in what is still, for some, a contested election that Gore probably rightfully won. Though I didn’t love Gore, I firmly believe America and the world would be in a better place today if he had won that vote outright.
1996: Clinton vs. Dole. Clinton’s first term seemed not wonderful but not terrible. They took a swing and a miss on health care (under Hillary’s guidance) and had a special counsel investigating the labyrinth of Whitewater but otherwise the economy was recovering and the world was not going to hell. Nevertheless, the Republicans swept the mid-terms and Newt Gingrich brought a new level of contentiousness to Congress, including government shutdowns in late-1995 that were none too popular in our household. The ’96 election was a no-brainer choice for me of Clinton over Bob Dole, who had been Bush’s vice president.
1992: Clinton vs. Bush. I had at least some hope for the Bush presidency but it was pretty miserable. There were some (seeming) successes in foreign affairs, including laying the groundwork to assimilate Eastern Europe through their 1989 revolutions, the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, and building a multinational coalition in the first Gulf War (after the Gulf War in early 1991, Bush’s approval ratings were near 90%), but domestic initiatives got caught up in budget deficits and worries about recession. In retrospect, I think the core issue was that Bush was never really aligned with the majority of the Republican party and was never trusted by the Democrats. Bush was a diplomat with a potent political pedigree, but he was not a strong or inspiring leader. By the time the next election came, the economy was dipping and lots of folks, including me, were ready for a change. Bill Clinton emerged from the woodwork of the Democratic primaries and offered at least some youthful energy and a roll of the dice on something new. I wasn’t entirely sure about him (even though he was a Georgetown grad and gave my year’s commencement address) but he got my vote.
1988: Bush vs. Dukakis. This race was at least somewhat interesting and appeared it was going to be close. George H. W. Bush had been Reagan’s VP and had a track record I actually admired. He had been Ambassador to the UN, headed the first US liaison office in China (1974-75, and David Dean’s boss there, I believe), and head of the CIA. He had been a moderate balance on the Republican ticket to Reagan’s conservatism and by all accounts wasn’t a favorite of Reagan’s so that was an endorsement in itself, to me. On the Democratic side, I’d had some interest in Gary Hart, but he was knocked out of the race early by a scandal that now appears to have been a setup by Lee Atwater, one of the slimier and contradictory creatures to inhabit American politics, and a progenitor down the path of increasingly nasty politics. The Democrats settled (and I do mean settled, as a number of potentially attractive candidates withdrew or flamed out) on Michael Dukakis, governor of Massachusetts, an earnest and uninspiring candidate. The nation still leaned Republican in Reagan’s wake, and Atwater’s dirty tricks did enough to raise doubt about Dukakis, such that the final vote was relatively decisive for Bush. It was the first time I actually voted for the winning candidate. Whoopee!
1984: Reagan vs. Mondale. Another disillusioning choice. There was no way I was voting for Reagan, whose first term had been a cavalcade of cronyism, disingenuous tax cuts, budget deficits, recession, Cold War games with the Russians, and a general cynical shift to the right across the country. Walter Mondale, who had been Carter’s VP, offered little hope of winning or inspiration. His choice of Geraldine Ferraro as running mate was a boost, of sorts, but it was clear they were going to get steamrolled by Reagan. They got my vote, but it was a reluctant one, and in local races I probably voted more Republican than Democrat. By this point I had no allegiance to either party.
1980: Reagan vs. Carter. This was my first actual vote, and I hated it. Carter had presided over an ignominious term as president: the Iran hostage crisis, gas lines and rationing, Three Mile Island (not necessarily his fault, but I always think of Carter in the SNL Pepsi Syndrome skit — which I’m amazed is not readily posted on YouTube), and “national malaise” come to mind. Ronald Reagan was a wooden actor who seemed to not have an original thought in his head, and seemed to represent the worst of conservative Republican tendencies. I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either of them. There was a quixotic independent candidate, John Anderson, who came out of what had been the moderate wing of the Republican party. I knew he couldn’t win, but he ended up getting my vote, mostly as a protest of the other candidates.
1976: Carter vs. Ford. In 1971, in the wake of Vietnam and student protests, the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. In November, 1976, I was 18 and therefore eligible to vote. However, I honestly can’t remember if I voted in this election. I reviled both candidates. Gerald Ford was the bumbling successor to (and pardoner of) Richard Nixon and had done little to redeem himself or his party. Jimmy Carter was a sanctimonious hillbilly at that point and I couldn’t believe this holier-than-thou peanut-growing purveyor of South Georgia sensibilities (I knew people from South Georgia; I didn’t like many of them) won the Democratic nomination. America was coming out of Watergate, the door was wide open for the Democrats and Carter was the best they could come up with? Having just moved from Hong Kong and in my freshman year at Georgetown, it’s possible I hadn’t established residency or just didn’t get around to registering. Either way, I don’t remember actually casting a vote for either candidate, nor did I want to. If I did, it may have been for Ford out of some level of sympathy for him not getting a fair shake and because I really didn’t like Carter at that point.
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