I was born at the Margaret Hague hospital in Jersey City, NJ when Hudson County politics was firmly under the control of Frank Hague. As a politically aware youth, my aversion to corruption steered me into the Republican Party.

In the fall of 1960, I was a high school junior. I remember going by bus to downtown Newark where I worked as a volunteer in a couple of Republican campaign headquarters. The Nixon/Lodge campaign office was at the corner of Raymond Blvd. & Broad Street. I stood on the street corner passing out campaign literature. I also did some envelope-stuffing nearby (in the Robert Treat Hotel) in the statewide offices of the campaign for Clifford P. Case, the (victorious) Republican candidate for the U.S.Senate. Case was known as a liberal Republican primarily because he was one of the most anti-McCarthy Republicans during the 1950's. Many Republicans stayed home, but independents help him win.

During the Kennedy-Nixon debates, I was in Newark at one of these headquarters where we could listen and cheer on Nixon. We did not have TV there, but did have a radio. I've read accounts that said that majority of those who saw the debate thought Kennedy won while those of us who heard the debate thought that Nixon won.

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