I used to love politics.
I suppose in a way, I had an advantage. Born in the late 70s, I grew up in Reagan’s America. By the time I was eight years old, I watched the nightly news with my dad every single day. We didn’t talk about it unless I had questions, but it was an unspoken ritual; a thing we shared. I remember that feeling of there being a real man in the White House; a man of courage, and honor, a man who could inspire and lead but wouldn’t talk down to the little guy. I wrote him a letter once, when I was about nine. I got a courteous reply — not from him, of course, but from a White House staffer sending back a pre-signed template in his name — but to me, it was the same thing, and I was elated. Being a little kid with a man like Reagan in the White House was not all that different from being a little kid with a good dad. You trusted him to protect you, provide for you, and do whatever dad stuff needed doing. Whatever came up, he could handle it. Even when you weren’t paying close attention to one another — you doing your thing, he doing his — his mere presence was comforting.