January 20, 1965
Happy Inauguration Day, Lyndon Johnson! I don't think he was the best man, but he was the better man. Scranton and Romney are good, too. I'll be looking for them in 1968. Gee, I'll be 19 then! I can vote in the 1972 elections. I wonder who will be running then? Ted or Robert Kennedy? Someone new, or an old man? Whoever is running, I will vote for him who best satisfies my needs in a President.
January 20, 2023
Was I awakening to politics, or just pretending? In my bipartisan household (Republican Mom, Democratic Dad), I had been the one parroting the “Kennedy will take orders from the Pope” line in 1960. Clearly I was no fan of LBJ, though I can’t recall why. William Scranton and George Romney are interesting choices; both were moderate or even liberal Republicans. Scranton was a freshman congressman during the Kennedy administration, where his support of civil rights and the Peace Corps earned him the label “Kennedy Republican”. Romney was not quite as liberal as Scranton, but neither would find a home in today’s GOP. Neither ran for elective office after the mid-1960s. By the time I was old enough to vote, the rightward shift of the Republican Party was clear enough to convince me to register as a Democrat, and I have seen nothing to change mind mind since.
As for that last sentence: remember that I was very, very young.