Who influenced your political views the most? I would have to say my dad, who learnt politics as a

[applegrove]

kid in Ottawa. His grandfather was a Liberal politician. My dad is a sensitive type person and uses that to figure out what is going on. He talked politics at the dinner table the whole time we were growing up. Tonight, for the first time in ages, he was making comments and it felt really good to hear him do that. So you can go home again.

[femmocrat]

1. Definitely my dad.

He loved Kennedy and that sparked my interest in politics in general.

[chemp]

2. John Lennon, George Carlin, Frank Zappa and George Harrison

Later on, Jello Biafra

If it were someone I knew, personally, it would be my older brother,Tom, who introduced me to all five.

[catabryna]

3. My dad. :) nt

[Cleita]

4. It had to be the old Los Angeles Times before they were sold

and taken over by conservatives. My parents were Republicans, not crazy ones, but fiscal responsibility ones. However, I found the bootstrap mentality didn't work for me, or more accurately, it didn't work for those who had fallen through society's cracks and I needed better than what the Republican ideology had to offer. I found my way reading many great writers in the editorial and opinion sections of that once great newspaper and that is what shaped my politics. I really miss getting the paper in the morning and digesting its contents in the morning with my coffee before I went to work. Ah, the good old days.

[BeaufortPenguin]

5. Several

Bill Clinton
George Carlin
Keith Olbermann
FDR

That would be the top of the list.

Although the likes of :

The Village Idiot
Kommie Karl
The National Dick
John Ashwipe
and
The Fixed Noise Comedy Tour

have all played an important role in solidifying them.

[mrmpa]

6. My Dad & my Mom

Both strong Union members. Even though he was a 14 year Marine Corps veteran, he was against the was in Vietnam & made sure his oldest son went to college to stay out of the draft.

I remember the Day JFK was killed and my Dad coming home early from work, I saw him in the kitchen, just holding on to my Mom as she cried.

Dad died in January 2000, he would have had a stroke had he lived through the debacle of a Presidential election that year.

[Gemini Cat]

7. My parents, plus growing up in the 1960s.

It would be hard not to be influenced politically with everything that went down in the 60s. Both good and bad. I had hopes for a better world.

[freshwest]

10. Same here, except my parents had passed and it was my aunt and uncle. We read the papers, magazines,

Television news and discussed it every day. They were union organizers back in the thirties as well. My public school was also a big influence, for example we did a secret ballot on the 1960 election. I got involved in campaigns before I was 18.

[FarLeftFist]

8. PBS, my teachers, my mother, Roger and Me, music, art, history...

Those influenced me greatly during my childhood and each one spoke depths to me. Those 7 things spawned millions of thoughts for me. (Btw I will be 32 this month, interested in politics since about 17 yrs old)

[Historic NY]

9. My Uncle a Democrat politician, but I grew up around politicians.....

I found out Republicans were awfully selfish pretty early on. Some were willing to do a favor if they really knew you. Mostly I depended on Democrats and my family was mostly all Democrats. We used to do the phone calling and envelope stuff and stamp licking. But I'm talking about old school politicians that could get together for a good cause or a good laugh...today its all out freaking war.

[WingDinger]

11. Reagan. As a young libertarian, Reagan shocked me into reality.

The business end of conservatism, is scapegoating, increasing human suffering through apathy.

I could articulate why not to vote Republican long before I could sell liberal rhetoric.

That Reagan took thirty years to blow up in our faces, is testament to our luck.

[SharonAnn]

16. Yes, Reagan. I began to understand how the "conservatives" were really right-wingers.

Three of his issues:

1. Against the ERA
2. Selling national park/forest rights for logging and drilling (James Watt)
3. Coddling the religious fundamentalists.
4. Cutting the social safety net and reducing taxes on the wealthy

[WingDinger]

19. Keeping all of central and south america under oppression and torture.

Iran Contra

Who cares about the environment, Jesus will be here any day.

All you need do is dig a hole, and cover it with a door, in case of us initiating a thermonuclear war.

I'll have to check with the family astrologer about that Ronnie.

We begin bombing in five minutes! hahaha

[soleft]

12. Jane Fonda and E.V. Debbs

[charmay]

13. My grandfather

who was always an officer in his union.

[NYC Liberal]

14. My grandmother.

Almost everyone in my family's a liberal Democrat, but she was the one who got me interested in politics. She was a "FDR Dem."

I wish I'd been able to meet her dad, my great-grandfather. The family was devoutly Catholic and he was a well-known, respected lawyer in their town. They had their own pew at The church, right up front. One week during Mass, the priest in his homily went off about FDR, and then about Eleanor - called her a "whore" amongst other vile things.

My great-grandfather, in the middle of Mass and the homily, gets the whole family - his wife, sisters, and 5 kids, and leads them right out of the church. Then later he called the priest and told him to leave his right-wing crap politics out of church.

[OhioBlue]

23. that is an awesome story. I can only imagine how much you would have liked to

have met him. He sounds like a very respectable person.

[mythology]

15. Oddly enough I'd have to say my maternal grandfather.

I say oddly enough because while he was considered himself Republican to the end, I mean he would have voted for Nixon again, he didn't espouse any modern Republican beliefs and was very much about helping others and doing the right thing.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

17. George Orwell, and anti-establishment type rockers

I had Issues with authority figures as a teenager. Then I grew up. Now I have legal battles; I guess somethings never change.

[Pholus]

18. My Dad....Blue Collar and proud of it.

To his boss one time when being threatened with termination: "That's okay, I was looking for a job the day I walked in here."

To the same boss when the boss complained about a requested raise: "You sell your product, I sell my hands. We both need to get a fair price and if that means that I go to work down the street, so be it."

Stories about his first boss whose colleagues were angry about the high wages he paid -- he said the boss countered "The guys I employ have families. I either pay them enough to raise their families or they take it from me. I'd rather give it."

Stories where the best outcome was that everyone was taken care of.

And a million more. A guy with an eighth grade education who encouraged his kid to get a PhD. I miss him a ton.

[undeterred]

20. My border collie.

[applegrove]

27. Don't laugh but we had a Prime Minister in Canada who used to talk to his dog. Like seriously.

[undeterred]

30. Its probably a good thing.

They are nonjudgmental listeners. Some have excellent work ethics.

[applegrove]

31. I think PM Mackenzie King actually used to have seances to talk to his mother too.

[Skittles]

21. reagan, actually

I was so sickened by his greed and idiocy it turned me into an avid Democrat

[Zoigal]

22. My maternal grandparents

who always injected some political subjects into the
evening meal discussions; always had time to sit down and
read the newspaper with me; and always were interested in
my school achievements. Set a terrific example in their
treatment of others, too. I am so lucky that they rescued me
from a foster home and took me under their wing.....z

[valerief]

24. Our political views are based mostly on our socio-economic class.

Unless you're a poor Republican. Then you're just plain stupid.

[applegrove]

28. That isn't true in Canada. Canada was more regional than socio-economic. Of course now the neocons

are trying to lock up the wealth vote because that is what those a**holes do. They slice and dice. But there is still a real regional flavour to our elections.

[elleng]

25. Dad too, and similar to you.

Sorry he's far from me geographically and, at 98, has lost his sharpness.

[Charlemagne]

26. The Bible

Seriously.

My family is generally apolitical. I read that stuff in the bible about helping people and not being a dick. So I thought to myself, hey those republicans are horrid. My leftism was cemented in college when I read real, scholarly history books (not the apple pie stuff we had in high school). My aunt, who is my hero, is a soc prof at a college. She is a feminist-socialist to the core. She admitted to me that is was also the bible that gave her all those 'commie ideas.'

[RainDog]

29. Martin Luther King n/t

[Xicano]

32. Common Sense

I've always been very independent minded and what influenced my political views was simply just moral principle and common sense. Well, that certainly excludes any consideration for a Republican or a conservative for that matter.

n/t

[mzmolly]

33. Common

sense.

[tjwmason]

34. Not people so much as my surroundings.

At a very early age (too early to remember with much clarity) I was living in the middle of the enormous miners' strike of the early 1980s, also lived in post-industrial depressed inner-city Sheffield (literally, the location for 'The Full Monty') - moved from there to Buckinghamshire, easily one of the wealthiest counties in the country and probably the most conservative. Makes for a complex set of thoughts to assimilate...

[annabanana]

35. My Father. Fairness was the key. He was not prone to partisanship, but

his insistence o fairness let him in a profoundly progressive direction.

[reACTIONary]

36. Hobbes, Leviathan (nt)

[MichaelMcGuire]

37. Good Question

Its more a national cause of statehood and working class politics thats shaped me politically rather than any single person either in politics or not. There are some exceptions to this eg Jimmy Reid, Winnie Ewing, Alex Salmond, Willie McRae, and although has had a fall from grace lately Tommy Sheridan. I'm sure theres more......

[trof]

38. My mom (single mother)

She was especially liberal for 40s, 50s, and 60s Alabama.
Thanks, mom.

[Amaril]

39. It may sound silly, but.......

Dr. Seuss (like you couldn't have guessed that, based on my avatar).

[lindac007]

40. defnitely my folks

As I get up there in age, I realize the influence my parents had on me more and more. They were republicans long before republicans went crazy. My dad died when I was in my late teens, but I remember his heartbreak when my older brother went to Vietnam. As a WWII vet, he hated war. I think he would have become a democrat if he had stuck around a while. I came from a house where the mantra was "if you can't say something nice about someone don't say anything". My folks would be appalled at today's republicans. My mom lived 30 years longer than my dad and I know she became way more liberal with each passing year.

My friends used to say "Conservative at 20, have no heart, liberal at 40 have no head" I think the behavior of today's republicans has made it much easier for those of us who are my age and share similar human values (and when I say human values, I mean caring for people, not corporations) to rejoice in being liberals in our later years.

[closeupready]

41. Probably my grandmother who was a staunchly Democratic FDR liberal.

Very feisty and the matriarch.

[Bluenorthwest]

42. First, my Father, then other elders in my life...

Dad first. Dad was on the money politically.

[obamanut2012]

43. Howard Zinn

Hands down.