As far back as middle school, I developed a passion for understanding what motivated people to take the political positions they were taking. I wondered why most people couldn’t see clear things clearly and why they had to be told what politicians thought and felt. Couldn’t they see that for themselves? I also wondered why some people seemed to wait until things happened or unfolded before they began telling everybody why they were better than the other guy at solving the problem. I guess it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that I began reading more in-depth American history, especially American political history.
I became interested in the second Adlai StevensonDwight Eisenhower presidential race. I didn’t know anything about politics or economics. All I knew was that we didn’t have very much and some other people had lots, lots more. I thought Stevenson was on the side of those that didn’t have very much, so obviously, I wanted him to win. Little did I know that he was running against a Republican war hero and that Republicans were trying to paint the Democratic Party as sellouts because of their 1948 and 1952 platforms on racial desegregation. I had no idea that everything said in a presidential campaign didn’t have to be the truth. I didn’t think these grown men would lie just to win a job. Of course, I had lots of growing up to do. So from that point forward, I committed myself to the pursuit of truth in politics. I found that uncovering the truth about the American political process in the twenty-first century was far more than just a notion, and there’s still lots left to do.
