Election Day

When I was in elementary school - I think it was 6th grade - we had a mock election. I voted for Ronald Reagan. I knew that the election was only within our school and that I was too young to vote, but secretly, I felt like I'd helped his cause with my vote.

I remember clearly the day that Bill Clinton was elected president. It was the day that my nephew died. My divorce separated me from that family, but he and his mother had and will always have a special place in my heart. His life was too short and too hard.

Presidential elections are easy to remember because they are the big ones, but I remember the governor's race between Ann Richards and the good ol' boy, Clayton Williams. I remember that although I consider myself a republican, I was pulling for Ann to win. Clayton didn't stand a chance against her sharp wit. Not to mention the times he shot himself in the foot (ie, when he compared rape to bad weather - "as long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it"). Ann once made fun of then V.P. Bush saying, "Poor George, he can't help it...he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." I didn't agree with everything that she did. Instituting the lottery that was supposed to help fund public schools - something I'm morally opposed to and I'm disappointed in how much of this money has actually found it's way to the school system. Robin Hood school funding - having "rich" schools funnel money into "poor" schools - while I can appreciate what she was trying to accomplish, it was a policy that worked better on paper than in practice. I don't agree with dumbing down as a solution. She did, however, do a lot of good in the prison system which badly needed help. She was human in a world of plastic politicians. Ann died this summer from cancer. Molly Ivins wrote a good piece about her.