Here’s my voting history, as much as I can remember, since I turned 18 in 1991. I’ve included federal races as well as some notable state races.
From 1992 to 1995 I was an absentee New Jersey voter going to college in Virginia. In 1995 I became a Virginia resident; in 1999 I moved back to New Jersey; in 2005 I became a New York resident.
1992 (NJ)
President: Bill Clinton/Al Gore
U.S. House: Herb Klein
1993 (NJ)
I don’t remember voting in the governor’s race (Republican Christie Whitman vs. the beleaguered incumbent Democrat Jim U.S. Florio).
1994 (NJ)
U.S. Senate: Frank Lautenberg (beat Chuck Haytaian)
U.S. House: Herb Klein (lost to Bill Martini in the 1994 Republican Revolution; two years later, Martini was beat in turn, one of only 8 of 54 Republican House freshmen to be ousted)
1995 (VA)
State senate: Emily Couric (didn’t she look like her sister?)
1996 (VA)
President: Bill Clinton/Al Gore
U.S. Senate: Mark Warner (lost to John Warner; went on to serve as governor; running for Senate again this year)
U.S. House: probably Virgil Goode (who later switched parties and became a nut)
1997 (VA)
I don’t remember voting in the governor’s race (Republican Jim Gilmore vs. Democrat Don Beyer).
1998 (VA)
I can’t remember if I voted in the U.S. House election.
2000 (NJ)
President: Al Gore/Joe Lieberman
U.S. Senate: Jon Corzine
U.S. House: Bob Menendez
2001 (NJ)
Governor: Jim McGreevey
2002 (NJ)
U.S. Senate: Frank Lautenberg (this is when Robert Torricelli dropped out and Lautenberg quickly replaced him on the ballot)
U.S. House: Bob Menendez
2004 (NJ)
President: John Kerry/John Edwards
U.S. House: Bob Menendez
2005 (NY)
Mayor: Mike Bloomberg
2006 (NY)
Governor: Eliot Spitzer
U.S. Senator: Hillary Clinton
U.S. House: Jerrold Nadler
2007 (NY)
Presidential primary: Barack Obama
The only Republican I’ve ever voted for is Mike Bloomberg. And that hardly counts. I don’t know why it took me so long to register as a Democrat.
1) Yikes. She looks just like her sister.
2) I cannot remember who I voted for every time, and I’ve only been voting since a special election we had in December of 2003, weeks after my 18th birthday…of course, I voted in a number of unopposed races, or just as uncontested (read: Barney Frank vs. whomever…say, Jack E. Robinson, III. Or was he against Kerrey? Or Kennedy? I don’t remember! See how memorable that race is?)
3) Republican, Independent, whatever he is, I am always amused by the mayor of New York City speaking with a thick Boston accent. My grandfather’s father actually worked with his father, Billy Bloomberg. He says it’s why he didn’t become an accountant, since his father said, “See that Billy Bloomberg? You don’t want to be an accountant, like him; he makes no money.” Joke’s on my grandfather…
4) You probably didn’t register as a democrat because there was no reason to affiliate until you had to vote in a closed primary (read: New York). I was unenrolled in Massachusetts.
4a) Any idea how I unaffiliate in New York now?
The only Republican I’ve ever voted for is Mike Bloomberg. And that hardly counts.
I continue to scratch my head at this logic. Every Republican elected makes the party that much stronger–do you realize what a feather in the cap it was for the GOP to have kept this office in New York City for almost sixteen years? How useful it was as a bully pulpit and fundraising tool?
RINO or not, he endorsed and campaigned for Bush and Jersey Republicans, he brought the convention here, and he’s threatened to run a third-party campaign if the Democratic nominee doesn’t turn to the right on foreign affairs (which he’d be in no position to do without the endorsement of New York voters). Voting him into office was unbelievably consequential, and it makes me sad that so many of my friends did it so blithely and continue to wave away the implications even now.
That said, Ferrer is a piece of shit and I didn’t bother voting for him because I knew he’d only ensure more decades of Republican rule after him.
Man. I actually sat out the Mayoral reelection (wasn’t in country to vote Bloomberg in the first time) but Ferrer was such an awful candidate I didn’t want to vote for him either.
Well, bloomberg’s race against Ferrer was his confidence vote. The real challenge was against Mark Green, who is pretty much above only Joe Lieberman in democrats I revile. Thank god Lieberman finally admitted he’s not a democrat anymore. And I say thank god because he blames god for every single thing that happens to him.
Who was running against McGreevey in 2001? I voted for Whitman against McGreevey in 1997. He was a tool then, too.
Today I might not have done that, even if she was a better candidate. Republicans are pretty detestable, but if you live in New England or the middle Atlantic, it’s wise to not assume the democrat is the better candidate, especially for a non-federal office.
In 2001 McGreevey trounced Bret Schundler, the far-right Republican who won the nomination over the party establishment favorite, Bob Franks. Schundler was the former mayor of Jersey City (God knows how a conservative Republican got that job) and didn’t even win Hudson County in the general election.
Bob Franks, of course, was the guy who lost to Jon Corzine in the 2000 Senate race; Schundler ran for the Republican gubernatorial nomination again in 2005, but lost to Doug Forrester, who lost the general election to Corzine; Forrester also lost his 2002 Senate race to Frank Lautenberg (who replaced Bob Torricelli on the Democratic ticket). New Jersey politics is so incestuous!